


great big joke (on me)

by writeonclara



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - High School, Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy, Fake/Pretend Friendship, Fights, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Some angst, creature feature, some drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-14 03:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2176119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeonclara/pseuds/writeonclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guy is really, <i>stupidly</i> attractive, even though he doesn't so much have a resting bitch face as he has a resting 'I’m going to murder you with my teeth’ face.</p><p>“Stiles,” the guy says.</p><p>“Do I know you?” Stiles says.</p><p>or: Pranks + pretend friends + somewhat murderous attacks = junior year. Stiles doesn't much like the new kid at Beacon Hills High, even if he <i>is</i> a star basketball player <i>and</i> seriously hot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Sheriff, phone for you."

A portable phone appears in Sheriff Stilinski's line of vision, snapping him out of the paperwork induced haze he'd been in for the past thirty minutes. He frowns up at Sally, his receiving officer. Sally wiggles the phone at him.

Not many people call him at the station, only Stiles, really, and he's supposed to be at school. Sally shrugs. "It's Beacon Hills High."

All the blood rushes to his head at once, making his ears buzz. He grips the edge of his desk. "Stiles—is he okay?"

"Uh, yes sir," Sally says, looking shifty.

Well, crap. Sheriff Stilinski knows what that look means. He sinks back into his chair, sighing through his nose. “It’s the second week of school. What kind of trouble can he have possibly gotten himself into _already_?”

 

*

 

Stiles scowls down at his hands, tuning out the principal until she sounds like the grown ups from Charlie Brown. He can feel Derek’s pissed off glare, but he channels his inner zen and goes to his happy place. One that doesn’t involve stupid basketball players and stupid principals.

Then, the stupid principal says, “Maybe this will be more effective if we involve your parents.”

Stiles drops his head against the back of his chair and groans. He closes his left eye. The ceiling goes blurry. Maybe Derek detached his retina. Stiles gleefully entertains the idea of lawsuits and restraining orders, and then he remembers that the principal wants to call his _dad_ and groans. “Seriously?”

“If you didn’t want your father involved, Mr. Stilinski, you should have considered the ramifications before picking a fight in school.” She turns her frosty glare towards Derek. “And Mr. Hale, I’m extremely disappointed in you. Considering all of your accomplishments at Highland Prep, we had such high hopes for you. This is not a good start, young man.”

Derek clenches his jaw and says nothing, staring down at his feet. If Derek wasn’t such a gigantic twat, Stiles might feel bad. Instead, he just glares at the side of Derek’s stupid head.

This is all his fault. 

 

*

 

It all started two weeks ago, on the first day of junior year and, consequently, the first time Stiles met Derek.

Summer vacation had completely destroyed Stiles for early mornings. It took him four tries to get the coffee maker going: he forgot to add the filter the first time, then the water, and finally the actual coffee. He made it strong enough to dissolve the lining of his stomach, yet still isn’t completely sure how and when he got to school.

His phone tells him he still has twenty minutes before class begins, so he locates his new locker, drops his backpack, and slithers down to the freshly polished tiles, gently cradling his travel mug of coffee. Just a few more minutes of shut eye and he’ll be golden.

“Stiles!”

Stiles leaps straight out of his skin.

When he gets back to earth, Scott is beaming down at him. Stiles clutches at his chest with both hands, mug pressed closed to his heart, and scowls up at him.

“Dude!”

“Sorry, man. You just looked so peaceful.” Scott drops down next to Stiles to immediately start digging through his backpack. “Hey man, did you hear?”

“No,” Stiles says, glaring. His heart is still beating rabbit-fast from Scott’s idea of what is 'funny'. “How do you already have gossip? You’ve been here for like, less than five minutes.”

“Yeah, but.” Scott is momentarily distracted by whatever is eluding him in his backpack. “Ah!” He pulls out a half-smushed blueberry muffin in a ziploc baggie and offers it to Stiles, who scrunches his nose and shakes his head.

“Anyway,” Scott says, taking a huge bite from the side of his muffin. “We got a new kid in our class. Some hotshot b-ball player from Highland Prep.”

“Oh yeah?” Stiles asks, not really interested. The dude will probably be like a Jackson 2.0.

“Yeah, some guy named Derek Hale? Apparently he lived here when he was a kid, but moved away when he was like, ten.”

Stiles frowns into his mug of coffee. The name jars something in his memory. “Derek Hale,” he repeats. “The name sounds familiar.”

“Like I just said, his family used to live here,” Scott says, around an impressive mouthful of muffin. Crumbs spray everywhere.

“Scott, gross,” Stiles says, scrunching his nose.

Scott brushes them away, just like he brushes away Stiles’ disgust. “They moved away for business, I hear. Something about expanding their family business? I don’t know.”

“No,” Stiles says, furrowing his eyebrows. “That’s not it.”

“Do you know him?”

“I don’t—”

There’s a burst of frenzied, yet whispered, commotion at the end of the hall. Scott and Stiles look up as a dark haired guy prowls down the hall. It’s not really his face that gets Stiles first, but the way he moves, stalking like an animal who knows where every muscle in his body is and how to best use them.

For some unfathomable reason, the guy is making a beeline straight for Stiles and Scott, eyebrows lowered in a predatory scowl. Stiles jerks halfway to his feet, preparing himself for 'flight' instead of 'fight.'

Then he really looks at the guy's face. He is really, _stupidly_ attractive, even though he doesn't so much have a resting bitch face as he has a resting 'I’m going to murder you with my teeth’ face.

“Stiles,” the guy says.

“Do I know you?” Stiles says.

The guy tilts his head down, eyebrows going even lower. People walk slowly past them, discreetly rubbernecking to watch this little drama unfold. Someone snickers, but stops quickly enough when the guy tilts his head towards them, not even breaking eye contact with Stiles. Stiles starts to push himself away from his locker, too vulnerable in his half-standing position, but then the guy whips around and continues his predator-stalk down the hallway.

Stiles braces himself against the locker, halfway to his feet. He gapes after the guy’s retreating back, then back down at Scott. Scott’s mouth is hanging open.

“Weird,” Stiles says.

“I think that was Derek Hale.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, pushing himself completely up and grabbing his bag. “Jesus, he’s hot.”

“What, _seriously_?” Scott shoots to his feet, grabbing his own bag. “He comes here, acting like he’s gonna beat the crap out of you, and _that’s_ what you get out of it?”

“Um, yes?” Stiles scratches the back of his head. "I mean, did you see his face?"

Scott scoffs, which is not a good look on him. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't get your hopes up, dude. He looked like he wanted to kill you."

"Hey man, woah. I can aesthetically admire someone without wanting to get in their pants. I don't dig the rooster."

“Sure,” Scott says.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

*

Stiles can’t leave it.

Derek Hale, somehow, for some reason, knows who he is, and Stiles can’t drop the niggling feeling that _he_ knows Derek too.

Derek sits in the back of the class during home room and makes it impossible for Stiles to spy on him, though he does sneak a couple of discreet glances that Derek totally catches. He also sits in the back during English, and, after a painfully awkward introduction where he just glares at everyone (what the hell, Mr. Harris), sits in the back during Chemistry.

Derek manages to successfully avoid Stiles for the first half of the day, but as soon as lunch rolls around, Stiles forgoes his usual uncomfortable spot at the corner of Scott's table, wedged between Danny and some other popular kid he doesn’t know, to drop down across from Derek.

"What," Derek says.

"Derek Hale, right?" Stiles asks.

Derek bares his teeth at his sandwich like a dog protecting his food. "So you really don't remember me."

"Should I?"

Derek jerkily shakes his head, then shoves away from the table, getting to his feet.

“Derek, wait,” Stiles says, reaching a hand out imploringly. “Hey man, even if I can’t remember, we can still be friends, right?”

Derek stares down at him and Stiles notices that he has the strangest eyes, not quite blue or green, just—pale.

“No,” Derek sneers and stomps away, leaving Stiles with his arm outstretched. He notices just how many people are watching their their little interaction, so he clears his throat and grabs Derek’s tray with his extended hand and tries to make it look like that’s what he was aiming to do in the first place.

 

*

Derek grits his teeth, glaring down at his syllabus for Calculus. Stiles' little overture during lunch was like an open invitation for everyone and their dog to try and make friends with him.

Lydia Martin, the pretty strawberry blonde who has made herself top dog at Beacon Hills beckons him to the empty seat beside her. Derek takes the seat by a sickly blonde girl instead. She barely spares him a glance.

Stiles doesn't even look at him.

"You're the new kid," the blonde says. Derek sighs. He should have known.

"Yeah," he says.

"Oh," she says, then doesn't say anything else. Derek decides she's a keeper.

"What's your name?" he asks after a moment, since the teacher clearly doesn't care if his students chat.

"Erica," she says, not even looking up from her doodling.

"I'm Derek," Derek says.

"Uh, yeah. Obviously." Erica rolls her eyes and Derek grins a little. Even though she smells off, like someone who has been sick for so long that it’s sunk into their clothes, she has spirit. Derek likes that.

When he looks up, Stiles is glaring at him. Derek glares back, but Stiles turns away again.

"I heard you rejected Stiles," Erica says, forcing Derek to reconsider his decision to be her friend.

"That's none of your business."

Erica doesn't say anything for a long time after that and Derek sighs quietly. He has no idea why so many people want to be his friend; he _sucks_ at it. At least school is almost over. Maybe he can convince his mom to let him finish he GED at Beacon Hills Community College when he gets home.

 

*

That night, Stiles runs.

Behind him, he can hear the sound of twigs cracking. He runs harder, faster than he’s ever run in his life, breath coming out in short, panicked gasps. A wolf howls in the distance—but it can’t be a wolf, there are no wolves in California—and Stiles stumbles, nearly braining himself against a tree.

Bugs and leaves are whipping into his face, but Stiles doesn’t even care, just runs deeper into the forest, begging between gasping sobs to get out of this alive, apologizing to his dad, and his mom, and anyone who might be listening for running away. He’ll go back to the hospital. He’ll sit with his mom and hold her small, frail hand. He’ll read her her favorite books, or will sing to her, or will do everything he can if he could just make it out of the forest alive.

He runs until he trips, landing hard on his hands and knees. He scrambles to the base of a large tree, curling up against it and murmuring, “Please don’t find me, please don’t find me, please don’t find me. It won’t find me, it won’t find me, it won’t find me...”

“Hey! You!”

Stiles jumps, head jerking back to crack against the trunk of the tree. He grabs the back of his head with both of his hands, whimpering.

Above him, a pair of eyes glare down at him and Stiles—

Stiles shoots into a sitting position, cracking his forehead against the edge of his nightstand that he somehow managed to get himself under in his sleep. He flails, tangles himself up in his sheets, and then falls off the side of his bed with a surprised ‘oof’!

His dad is leaning against his doorframe, sipping from a mug and peering down at Stiles with an amused lift of eyebrows.

“This is not funny,” comes Stiles’ groan, from half under his bed. “Ow.”

“Yes, it really is,” his dad says, slurping his coffee with purposeful obnoxiousness. “Waffles are in the toaster.”

“I really need to vacuum under here,” Stiles says, absently, then sneezes.

 

*

Not only is Derek the sourest grouchy old man stuck in a seventeen year old’s body, but that he also has the social acumen of a rock. Stiles isn’t the only one glared into submission for daring to make overtures of friendship. It’s kind of funny to watch people line up to talk to Derek, only to be sneered away. Derek’s a visiting prince from a neighboring kingdom, refusing all attempts at entertainment and dismissing the awed masses as worthless peons.

It continues to be funny all the way up until Derek decides to take Isaac Lahey under his wing.

“It’s because he’s so freakishly tall,” Stiles snipes, slamming his locker shut. “He’s recruiting people for his basketball team.”

“That seems plausible,” Allison agrees, though Stiles can hear the laughter in her voice. “Doesn’t really explain Erica and Boyd, though.”

“Oh, so he’s decided to be friends with them now, too? That’s just fucking great.”

“Stiles, buddy.” Scott slings an arm over Stiles’ shoulders. “You’re gonna have to let it go, dude.”

“Let what go? There’s nothing to let go. I have already let it all go. It is _long_ gone. Gone like the dinosaurs. And by that I mean really, really extinct.”

“Uh huh. Soo, why are you staring at Derek like you want to eat his face off?”

Stiles doesn’t appreciate the dubious note in Scott’s tone, but he ignores it in favor of continuing to glare at Derek and his new buttbuddy as they stroll down the hallway towards them. Derek spares him a quick glance, and then actually growls at _Allison_ , like a big, dumb dog.

“Hey!” Scott yells, balling his fists at his sides. “What is your problem, man?”

“I have no problem, as long as you and your little girlfriend stay the hell away from me,” Derek says, all quiet menace.

“Scott, it’s okay,” Allison says, grabbing onto his arm. She’s chewing on her thumbnail, but she doesn’t really look that surprised, which is kind of surprising in of itself. Regardless, Derek needs to back the hell off.

Isaac shifts uncomfortably, but stays loyally by Derek’s side. Stiles has never actually had any problems with Isaac; he’s a quiet dude who keeps mostly to himself, but if he’s choosing to stick by Derek in his totally irrational douchery, then he’s going to have to go down too.

He's not sure who throws the first punch, but it's definitely Scott who lunges first. Good ol' dependable Scott, the white knight of Beacon Hills High.

The point is, it’s actually not Stiles’ fault the fight started _at all_ , even though he does launch himself with a warcry into the fray, fists flying. It's not like he _told_ Boyd and Erica to jump out of nowhere to back Derek up. He didn't _ask_ Danny and Jackson, of all people, to jump to his and Scott's defense. He sure as hell didn't tell Derek to grab him by the collar and haul back, blue eyes unnaturally bright with fury. The flash of panicked recognition in Derek's eyes comes a moment too late and Stiles crashes hard into the lockers, holding his eye.

Yet when Mr. Harris shoves into the fight, it's Stiles who gets grabbed and yanked to his feet.

"What the hell is going on here?" Mr. Harris demands, gripping Stiles' shoulder hard enough to bruise. Everyone else has scattered, the cowards, except for Derek, who is still staring at Stiles in horror. Stiles would complain, but his _face_ hurts. "Stilinski! Hale! Principal's office, _now_!"

 

*

Derek stares down at his hands. This is just freaking great. He hasn’t even been in Beacon Hills for a full month and he’s already sitting in the principal’s office, waiting for his parents to come for a more ‘effective punishment.’ He really, really hopes they call his dad.

Stiles is slouched in the chair on the other side of the office, closing one eye at a time to test his vision. Inwardly, Derek cringes. He’d been too caught up in act of fighting to really pay attention to _who_ he was fighting. His mother is going to _kill_ him.

As if just thinking about her is a summoning, the door swings open and, no, they didn’t call his dad. Talia Hale steps into the office, already frowning. Derek absolutely does not sink lower into his chair.

“Derek,” Talia growls, taking in the whole grisly scene at a glance before turning her red eyed glare toward her son. Derek scowls out the window defiantly. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Derek grumbles.

Across the room, Stiles snorts. Talia turns back to him, face softening with concern. “Oh, Stiles,” she sighs, which earns her a strange look from the boy in question. “Derek, did you _hit_ him?”

Outside, Derek can see a bird hopping from branch to branch. It chirrups playfully to another bird, higher up in the tree.

“ _Derek_.”

“He got in the way,” Derek mutters, as the other bird tires of the first bird’s overtures and takes to the sky.

“Jesus Christ,” Talia says, and Derek can hear her hand slide down her face. “What the hell were you thinking! Apologize _right now_.”

Derek spares a mutinous glance at her. Her face is contorted with anger and—something else. Concern. He turns back to the window.

“Sorry,” he says to the bird, who is drooping from his friend’s rejection.

"Whatever," Stiles snaps.

"Stiles—" Talia says, but Stiles shoves out of his chair. He slams open the door just in time to meet the sheriff, who still has one hand on the handle and looks unbalanced from the door swinging open without any action on his part.

"Jesus Christ, kiddo," the sheriff says, a weird echo of Talia, as he takes in his son’s black eye. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just walked into a door," Stiles says, shutting the door behind him. This doesn’t even muffle their conversation.

"They said you got in a fight," the sheriff says, disapprovingly.

"It was a really mean door."

"Was that Talia Hale?"

"I have no idea. Can we just go?"

"Not so fast." The sheriff sounds like he’s frowning. A second later, the door is pushed back open. The sheriff’s eyes stutter a little on Talia; it’s not really surprising, since Derek objectively knows that his mother is a beautiful woman, but the sheriff seems mostly immune.

"Sheriff Stilinski," Talia says, smiling pleasantly. "It's good to see you again."

"You too. It's unfortunate we couldn't have met under better circumstances."

"Agreed." Talia glances at Stiles, her expression unreadable. "The principal should be back in any minute. Now, why don't we all talk about what happened here?"

The next forty minutes are torture. The combined efforts of Talia, Sheriff Stilinski, and Principal Ann are eventually enough to pry the story haltingly out of Stiles and Derek. When Allison Argent’s name comes up, Talia’s eyes fly to Derek’s face. Derek is back to looking out the window.

“Well,” Sheriff Stilinski exhales. “As much as I agree with you that the boys need to be punished, Principal Ann, it sounds like no one was really hurt.”

“Um, hello?” Stiles waves to his own face. “Detached retina here!”

“Your retina isn’t detached,” the sheriff says absently.

“What Sheriff Stilinski is saying,” Talia picks up, smiling benignly, “is that the boys clearly regret the disturbance and will gladly attend detention for as long as you see fit.”

“I don’t regret anything,” Stiles mutters, then ‘oofs’ when Sheriff Stilinski lightly elbows him in the head.

“Generally speaking, suspension is the preferred punishment for fighting on campus,” Principal Ann says, but she’s wilting under the power of Talia’s smile. “But I see your point. There is no need to damage the boys’ permanent records for something they—clearly feel bad for.” The principal says the last bit dubiously, gaze flicking between the boys’ scowling countenances.

“I think detention for two weeks will be suitable. During lunch," Principal Ann decides, glancing at one of the team photos on her wall. “We wouldn’t want to conflict with their practice, after all.”

“No we wouldn’t,” Talia agrees, brightly. Principal Ann exhales when Talia turns her piercing gaze away.

"Go get a ice pack," the principal orders. "You have enough time to get to your next class without being late."

Stiles grimaces and stands up, followed closely by his father as he leaves the office.

"I hope you know that on top of your detention, you're grounded," the sheriff says as they walk down the hall.

"The same goes for you," Talia says, ignoring the principal's puzzled frown at the apparent nonsequitur. It's easy to forget who can hear what, sometimes.

Derek sighs, dropping his head against the back of his chair. This is Stiles' fault.

The Hale house is buzzing with gossip by the time Derek gets home that evening. No one says anything to him directly, but he can hear Cora whispering gleefully about the fight to Connor, two floors up. Laura smiles encouragingly at him from where she’s sitting on the couch with Uncle Peter, but keeps her mouth shut. Uncle Peter mimics Laura.

Derek _hates_ it.

"I'm going to bed," Derek announces, even though it’s still light out.

"Sure," Laura says.

"Good night," Uncle Peter says.

Derek growls quietly and stomps to his room. He doesn’t slam the door, if only because he doesn’t want his mom to yell at him and then feel bad about it.

 

*

Even though lacrosse season doesn't start until spring, it's become a tradition for the team to meet for pick up after school. The boys stomp their feet and rub their arms to get their blood flowing. September days in California are always so brutally hot, but the temperature plummets as soon as the sun goes down and, unsurprisingly, everyone has forgot their sweaters.

“Those assholes will think again before they mess around with us!” Jackson shouts, pacing in front of the team.

“Yeah!” everyone cheers.

“They think they can just come here and take over the school! Well, _we were here first_!”

“Yeah!” everyone cheers.

“We’ll show those basketball assholes that Beacon Hills High is a _lacrosse_ school!”

“Yea—wait, what?”

“Oh, that explains it,” Stiles says, hitting his palm with his fist in sudden realization. “I was wondering why Danny and Jackson fought with us.”

“What?” Scott asks, confused.

“They feel threatened. Lacrosse is like, their _thing_ and Derek’s an awesome basketball player.”

“Makes sense,” Scott says, a little dubiously. “I bet Jackson’s nervous that Derek’s going to be cooler than him.”

“They’re both assholes, anyway,” Stiles mutters, twirling his stick. He actually did remember his sweater (and two additional shirts), so he’s free to do something besides try to warm himself up.

“So do you know what we’re going to do?” Jackson continues, making a point to look at each of his teammates in the eye, the giant primadonna.

“Try to take over the world?” Stiles says, under his breath, which earns a quiet laugh from Scott and a weird look from Danny. Whatever, it’s not his fault if Danny doesn’t watch classic cartoons.

“No, stupid,” Jackson says, glaring at Stiles. “We’re going to get even.”

 

*

“How do you even deflate a basketball, anyway?”

A metal basket on wheels full of teetering basketballs sits in the middle of the equipment room, ready and waiting for the first game of the season. Stiles carefully examines the basket, peering under it with studied expertise.

“I know squat about basketball,” Stiles admits.

Scott has his phone out, searching for how to deflate a basketball. “Says here we need a needle.” He frowns. “Do you have a needle?”

“Yeah, I carry one around for emergency stitchwork,” Stiles says, carefully grabbing one of the basketballs from the top of the pile.

“Bilinski! McCall! What are you two doing?”

Stiles drops the basketball he was holding which, because his luck is what it is, knocks over the basket holding the rest of the balls. They watch in tense silence for a moment, then look at each other.

"We were just, uh..."

"The basketball team needed their balls deflated," Stiles says, with a perfectly straight face, even though Scott snorts a totally puerile laugh behind him. "For...easier transportation. For their away game."

“The first game is at home,” Coach Finstock says.

“That’s what I said. For their home game.”

“Ah, that makes perfect sense,” Coach Finstock says. He really looks like he believes it, too. “Did you boys come with a needle? You can’t deflate the balls without a needle.”

“Uh, no,” Scott says. “Stiles forgot his sewing kit at home.”

Stiles nods earnestly, squashing the sudden need to chuck one of the basketballs at Scott’s head. It is, after all, for the greater good.

“Use the pump.”

“Isn’t that opposite of what we want to do?”

“Use your head, Bilinski,” Coach Finstock says. “You can detach the pin from the pump.”

“Thanks, Coach!” Stiles says, brightly. “I think we’ve got it from here. We wouldn’t want to keep you from whatever important business that’s keeping you here after hours.”

Coach Finstock gives them one last, dubious look, but thankfully leaves, muttering something about school hours and punks. They wait until they can no longer hear his footsteps, before sharing a relieved glance.

“Sewing kit?” Stiles says.

Scott shrugs innocently, and then laughs and catches the basketball Stiles heaves at him.

“There has to be a pump around here, somewhere,” Stiles says, digging through the shelves. He throws a golf club over his shoulder, then a football, then a hockey puck, and then he puzzles over the top half of a bikini, before throwing that over his shoulder too.

“I don’t get why we got volunteered to do the dirty work,” Scott complains, when Stiles finds the pump with a satisfied, ‘ah!’ “Jackson should be here, not me. Do you know what my mom’s going to do to me if she finds out I’m sneaking onto school after hours? Or what your _dad_ is going to do when _he_ learns you’re out here when you’re supposed to be grounded?”

“Nothing, because he will never find out,” Stiles says, gravely, and jams the pin into the basketball.

 

*

Derek stands in the middle of the basketball court. It’s his first game at Beacon Hills High; he knows exactly how much is riding on him being Captain. Beacon Hills High School is known for their Lacrosse team, _not_ for basketball. His reputation as a primo basketball player has preceded him, and now the entire school is waiting, with bated breath, to see what he can do. Even Stiles is sitting in the bleachers. He's with his other half, that McCall kid, but he's _there_.

Isaac tosses him a basketball. Derek lets it roll off his hand into a dribble, only it just sort of—plops. It doesn’t even roll away, sagging into itself like it blew too early and is filled with shame instead of air.

Derek really doesn’t have to listen very hard beyond the startled laughter of the other team and the audience to hear Stiles’ smug cackle.

"This is war, Stilinski!" Derek says, shaking his fist at Stiles. Stiles just laughs harder.

 

*

"Wow," Stiles says, impressed in spite of himself. All of their lacrosse sticks are lined up neatly against the lockers, completely unstrung. The floor of the locker room is an intricate web of strings. "They really went all out."

Danny and Scott are already restringing their nets, but Jackson is just standing in the middle of the jumbled mess, looking furious.

"They'll regret this!" Jackson says, shaking his fist in a weird echo of Derek.

"He and Derek should go into theatre together," Stiles murmurs to Scott, who nods sagely.

 

*

"You seem—better."

Derek looks up from his history book, marking his spot with a finger. He’s still grinning to himself about the prank they played on the lacrosse team. It was a good idea, bringing Erica into the loop. For all that she keeps to herself, the girl’s got a wicked brain on her.

Laura's leaning against the door to his room, completely ignoring his KEEP OUT sign. One of the only benefits of moving back to Beacon Hills is that he has his own room again. Not that it offers much privacy, re: nosy older sisters.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Derek says, looking down at his book.

Laura sidles further into his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. "You do," she says, fiddling with a loose thread on his comforter. "I'm glad, you know? I've missed you."

Derek turns back to his book, toying with one of the pages. "Yeah."

"So, um, do you want to go for a run?"

Derek turns back to his sister. She looks so hopeful that he sighs, giving in to a small smile. "Yeah, I do."

 

*

They make it all the way through English without further incident the next day, and then Derek takes the seat next to Stiles in the Chem lab. Stiles side eyes him.

“That seat’s taken.”

“Oh, that’s just too bad,” Derek says, almost cheerfully. Stiles side eyes him harder.

He’s prevented from any further protests as Mr. Harris demonstrates the experiment they are performing in class today. Stiles grabs the necessary chemicals, sneaking glares at Derek. He’s in the process of carefully measuring out what he needs into his beaker when a balled up piece of paper pegs him on the back of his head. He whips around. Erica wiggles her fingers at him.

There’s a clink, and Stiles turns back around just in time to see his beaker erupt.

"STILINSKI!" Mr. Harris howls over the laughter of the class.

"Oh, now it's personal," Stiles hisses. Derek grins wickedly.

By the time the end of class has rolled around, Stiles may or may not have spilled gentian violet on Derek’s arm, dying his exposed skin a cheery purple, and Derek may or may not have yanked his chair to the side when Stiles tried to sit down after getting a new beaker. Stiles is surprised that Mr. Harris hasn’t forbade the two of them from sitting next to each other ever again.

The one and only benefit of having detention at lunch with Mr. Harris is that it saves on travel time. When the lunch bell rings, everyone but Stiles and Derek get up from their seats, chatting happily as they file out of the room.

Stiles and Derek sit in silence next to each other for a full minute, before Stiles grabs his bag and takes one of the back chairs.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Derek says, grinning. It’s—really not a bad look on him at all. When Derek grins, his entire face gets involved; nose scrunching and eyes crinkling at the sides. Stiles just glares and plops his bag on the desk, resolutely ignoring Derek for the entire detention.

 

*

 

Stiles leans back to admire his handiwork, hands on his hips. The ‘pup’ in ‘SOURPUP’ is a little small (he’s never been good at writing banners; the last letters always shrink, for some reason), but overall, it’s not bad. The smaller ‘sourpups’ and angry cartoon stick-dogs prancing across the doors and windows are a nice added touch.

“Stiles, what the _fuck_!”

Stiles jumps and whips around. Derek is standing across the parking lot with Erica and Boyd, staring at his Camaro with abject horror. He takes a step forward. Stiles takes a step back.

“Is something the matter, Derek?” Stiles asks, earnestly. “Do you not like it? I know I’m not the best artist, but I really did try my—”

He squawks when Derek lunges towards him, dodging around the car and taking off towards the lacrosse field. He’s always been a good runner, but Derek is _fast_. It takes quick thinking to avoid being tackled right in the middle of the parking lot, feinting right before charging left around a beat up Toyota. Derek actually scrambles _over_ the Toyota, despite the loud protests from the driver.

Stiles makes it all the way over the fence and into the forest, before Derek just _vaults_ over the fence as if it’s nothing at all and tackles Stiles to the ground. Stiles is laughing brightly, probably because he has some sort of death wish.

“Derek,” Stiles wheezes around his laughter, “stop being such a sourpuppy!”

Derek's lips are twitching, like he's trying not to laugh himself. He grabs a handful of leaves with his still purple hand and grinds them into Stiles' hair, despite his laughing protests.

"There," Derek says, admiring his handiwork. "Much better."

Stiles looks up at him, flushed and breathless and still laughing a little, and suddenly Derek frowns and shoves off Stiles, using his stomach to push himself up.

"Oof! Idiot," Stiles wheezes, bracing himself on his elbows.

"Your face is an idiot," Derek snaps, and storms away.


	2. Chapter 2

“There’s been another attack,” Talia says, flattening the front page of the newspaper so Peter can see it.

“‘Mountain Lion Attack in Beacon Hills,’” Peter reads. “‘One dead, one in critical condition.’ _Mountain lions_. Humans think up the most ridiculous cover stories in their pathetic bid to ignore the obvious.”

“There’s also this,” Talia says, handing Peter _The National Enquirer_.

“‘Sasquatch Spotted in Small City,’” Peter reads, tone going high in disbelief. “‘Bigfoot is kidnapping local residents and is keeping them in his— _love den_? Talia, where do you find this garbage?”

“At the checkout line in Safeway.”

Peter inhales deeply, probably to launch into a spiel about humans and their overall ignorance, when the kitchen door slams open. Both he and Talia stop to watch Derek storm into the kitchen, grab a banana, and storm back out.

“And he was doing so much better,” Talia sighs.

“ _Teenagers_ ,” Peter says, in disgust.

"Go easy on him," Talia says, flipping to the comics. "It's better than when Laura went through her emo phase. At least Derek has a reason."

 

*

It’s been nearly two full days and Derek hasn’t retaliated once since the whole SOURPUP fiasco. Stiles spent the first day sitting at the edge of his chair in anticipation, thinking every little thing was a prelude to a prank (Misplaced headphones? Derek stole them to dunk in the toilet. Coffee tastes a little weird? Derek poisoned it.), but there’s been—a whole lot of nothing. In fact, Derek seems to have regressed back to the giant douchebag from the first day, completely ignoring Stiles when he's not trying to set him on fire with the power of his angry eyes.

Maybe Derek feels victimized. Maybe he thinks Stiles is a _bully_.

Scott turns his head slightly so that Stiles can see his profile. “You’re sulking,” he whispers. “Why are you sulking?”

“Do you think I’m a bully, Scott?”

Scott snorts. “Jackson is a bully. Derek is a bully. Mr. Harris is a bully. Coach _Finstock_ is a bully. You are like, the opposite of a bully. You’re bully-fodder.”

“Thanks,” Stiles sneers. “Did I go too far with my car prank? Maybe Derek’s weirdly obsessed with his car. I mean, it is a Camaro.”

“ _Someone’s_ weirdly obsessed, that’s for sure,” Scott says, side-eying him.

“He hasn’t pranked me back.”

Scott twists all the way around to look at him in disbelief. “You’re upset because Derek Hale hasn’t pranked you.”

“Well, _yeah_. It’s been days! If he hasn’t retaliated yet, that either means I went too far and I am a bully, or he’s planning something really epic.”

“Stop obsessing, it’s weird.”

“Wanting to prepare myself for an epic prank isn’t weird.”

“It is.”

“It isn’t.”

“Like, Lydia-level weird.”

“ _How dare you_ ,” Stiles hisses.

“I’m just saying, dude. You haven’t obsessed about someone like this since Lydia.”

“We’re not friends anymore,” Stiles announces, leaning back in his seat to signal the end of the conversation. Scott just snorts and turns back around before Mr. Harris can give him detention.

Scott’s out of his mind. Lydia and Derek aren’t even in the same ballpark. They’re not even playing the same _sport_. Lydia’s a homerun and Derek’s nothing but a—a—Stiles tries to think up a good basketball analogy, but when all he can think of is ‘rebound,’ he drops his head on his desk with an audible thunk.

Even _if_ he’s obsessing over Derek, which he is _not_ , Derek Hale is nobody’s rebound. Besides, it’s not like there’s anything to rebound from. Any softer spot Stiles had for Lydia was effectively calloused over after sophomore year, when he made the awful, awful mistake of asking her to the Winter Formal. Lydia had whirled on him, looked him dead in the eye, and said: "Don't talk to me. Just, don't ever talk to me again."

So Stiles didn't.

Stiles likes to think he had been growing out of his crush, anyway. He still thinks Lydia is an unparalleled goddess, but it's been sort of liberating, not seeking her out every time he enters a room.

The point is, Derek and Lydia are two totally different beasts, and Stiles might be a bully.

Derek doesn’t prank him all the way through Chemistry. When the bell rings and Scott gives Stiles an apologetic wave, Derek doesn’t move from his seat on the other side of the classroom.

It’s their last detention; Mr. Harris stands in front of their desks, arms folded. For the most part, Mr. Harris has ignored them during their detentions, unless they did something unforgivable. Stiles yawned, once, and Mr. Harris spent the next fifteen minutes lecturing about ungrateful, lazy students who are bound to grow up into pathetic slobs. It at least broke the monotony.

“For the sake of school unity, you two are going to pretend to be friends,” Mr. Harris says.

“Pretend to be friends?” Stiles repeats, incredulous. Derek’s mouth drops open.

“I know this is a foreign concept to you, Stilinski, since you have all of one friend—”

“Harsh! I have one and a _half_ , thank you. Allison counts.”

“Shut up. The two of you either pretend to be friends, or I stick you with detention for another month.”

Stiles and Derek glance at each other. It’s tempting, to go with one more month of detention, but.

“We’ll do it,” Derek says.

“Don’t think I don’t know about your little ‘pranks’,” Mr. Harris says, eyes angry slits. It makes him look like he needs to upgrade his glasses. “When I find a way to prove it’s you, not even your mother will be able to talk Principal Ann out of suspending you, Hale.”

They look up at him with identical innocent expressions. Mr. Harris continues to glare, and then says, “Get out of here. Don’t let me catch you guys fighting again; I have better things to do during my lunch.”

With a dramatic flourish that would leave Jackson weeping with envy, Mr. Harris sweeps out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Yeah right,” Stiles says.

“Probably he needs to do his nails.”

It’s a lame joke, but Stiles snorts anyway. Derek scowls ferociously and stomps away.

 

*

The next morning after English, Stiles is yawning into his fist when someone roughly shoves into him. He reels to the side, crashing into the lockers.

“Hey!” Stiles shouts, furious. For some reason, Matt Daehler flicks him the bird. What the _hell_. Stupid basketball jerks.

He picks himself off the locker and dusts off the front of his shirt, before someone grabs him by the arm and propels him down the hall.

"Dude, what the hell?" Stiles asks Derek, wrenching his arm free from his grip. Derek’s hand is _still_ purple. Stiles grins. “Man, that gentian violet stuff is pretty insane.”

“I hate you,” Derek says, conversationally. "Did you forget that we have to pretend to be friends?"

"Hauling me around and glaring at me isn't really friendly, Derek."

Derek forces a smile onto his face, but since his eyebrows are still murderous he just looks like he wants to kill Stiles dead and is weirdly happy about it.

"I'm so convinced," Stiles says, dryly.

"This is such a stupid idea anyway," Derek huffs, dropping the smile.

Stiles looks away. "Yeah, I know. Sucks needing to act like you're friends with someone you’ve already decided not to be friends with."

They walk in awkward silence the rest of the way to class. They attract a fair share of surprised glances, so at least they _look_ like they want to be in each other's company. No one has to know how much Stiles wants to punch Derek in the face.

At the door to Chemistry, Derek stops. Stiles stops too, looking at him.

"Stiles, I—" Derek says.

Stiles swings a hand up, palm just inches from Derek's nose. "Save it," he says, and stomps over to a desk on the other side of the room. Derek doesn't take the hint. He swings his backpack into the empty seat behind Stiles.

Mr. Harris gives them both an approving nod, although Stiles is sunk low in his chair, glaring out the window.

 

*

“Benedict Arnold,” Jackson hisses as he stalks past Stiles, tray loaded with congealing mac and cheese.

“You don’t even know who that is!” Stiles says, shaking his fist at Jackson’s retreating back, before he realizes what he’s doing and hastily drops his hand. He’s been hanging around Jackson and Derek way too much lately. Their stupid habits are rubbing off on him.

Jackson must have decided that he won the point, because he just continues walking, shoulders back with smug superiority.

Stiles grabs his own mac and cheese and stomps over to Derek’s table, where the grumpy-ass basketball player is sitting all by himself. No one else joins them; both their groups of friends choosing other tables just near enough to glare and eavesdrop.

Not that they have anything particularly interesting to listen to. Derek just glances up at him when Stiles drops into the chair across from him, then looks back to his phone. Stiles spears a noodle, glancing over his shoulder at Scott to get a gauge on his reaction. Predictably, Scott’s glaring at him. Behind him, Matt’s waving excitedly at Derek, but since Derek’s ignoring him, Stiles decides to ignore him as well.

“I think _someone’s_ got a crush on you.” Well, mostly ignore it. Matt’s a dick. So is Derek, for that matter. Match made in heaven.

Derek glances up from his phone at Matt, then shrugs. “No need to be jealous, Stilinski. I can manage being friends with more than one person.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Stiles sneers. “How do we _pretend_ to be friends, anyway?” He puts extra emphasis on the word, staring at Derek meaningfully. Derek just stares back, since he’s a champion starer.

“Walk to class together, eat lunch together, sit next to each other in class.” Derek rolls his eyes. “Get BFF necklaces, I don’t know.”

“BFF necklaces, Derek, really? Don’t you think that’s just a little,” Stiles’s eye brighten with unholy glee and he lifts his fork of mac and cheese for emphasis, “cheesy?”

Derek looks at the forkful of mac and cheese, then back up at Stiles’ face. He stands. “I’m going.”

“Derek, wait!” Stiles protests weakly around his laughter. “I thought we were pasta this!”

“ _Bye_.”

Almost immediately after Derek storms away Scott stomps up to the table, glaring viciously at Derek as they pass each other. Stiles wipes at the corners of his eyes, still chuckling at his puns. Man, he just slays himself sometimes.

“Why were you sitting with him?”

Stiles shrugs, some of his delight fading away. He pushes his mac and cheese around on his plate. Scott has this way of sounding personally betrayed that makes Stiles feel like the worst kind of person. “No reason.”

“I get that you wanted to be his friend—well, no, I don’t, not really—besides, he attacked Allison!”

“He didn’t _attack_ her.”

“You know what I mean!”

Stiles does, it’s just—for a moment, it really felt like he and Derek weren’t just _pretending_ to be friends. Stiles glumly pushes his tray away. He’s probably just projecting, anyway. Scott’s his best bro and he’s always so busy with Allison these days and Stiles is just a poor lonely slob left in the sidelines.

“I just made myself sad,” he says, mostly to himself. Scott sighs and sits across from him. His face is still tight with annoyance, but at least he's not storming off in a moody huff. Best bro or not, Scott can be _such_ a primadonna. He’s surrounded by them these days, jeez.

“Just so you know, I don’t approve of your new friendship,” Scott says.

“I would have never guessed.” Stiles doesn’t really know why he’s not telling Scott about Mr. Harris’ weird decree; it’s not that he _likes_ keeping secrets from Scott, it’s just. Scott hasn’t had a lot of time for Stiles these days, and it’s kind of nice having something of his own to entertain himself with. Not that he’s entertaining himself with Derek or anything. That would just be weird.

When Stiles makes it to Calc after lunch, Derek points to the desk in front of him with his chin. There’s an old bookbag covered in British Invasion band patches saving his spot. It’s so unexpectedly unlike Derek that Stiles just stares at it for a minute.

"Sit here," Derek demands.

Stiles glances at the bookbag, then to the only other empty seat next to Lydia. Stiles shoves Derek’s bookbag to the ground and sits.

"You know, it sucks that I have to give up all my other friends to be your friend," Stiles hisses.

"Is Scott giving you the cold shoulder?" Derek asks, mockingly.

"Yeah, maybe if you didn't threaten his girlfriend he'd warm up to you more."

Derek has no response to that. They didn't say a single word to each other for the rest of the class.

So, their first day as pretend friends was a big flop. Derek doesn’t even wait for Stiles after the class ends, which is just rich. It’s not like _he_ has anything to be mad at.

“See ya later, buddy. I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave,” Stiles murmurs, throwing a wave at Derek’s retreating back. Derek’s back tenses a little, like he actually heard Stiles, but since of course that’s impossible, Derek doesn’t turn back to him.

Derek has really, really nice shoulders. Stiles is a lacrosse player; although he doesn’t actively check out his teammates, he’s noticed their bodies before, knows what exceptionally fit teenage dudes look like. Derek is _preternaturally_ fit.

Lydia gives Stiles a weird look as she passes him, and he swings his hand back, turning his wave into running his fingers through his hair, because he’s slick like that.

 

*

Stiles is curled up against the base of a tree. He’s whimpering and trying very hard not to cry. He’s never seen his father cry (except tonight) and _he_ won’t cry (though his breaths are coming out in shallow gasps).

“It won’t find me, it won’t find me, it won’t find me..."

“Hey! You!”

Stiles gasps, head jerking back to crack against the tree. Clear, pale eyes glare down at him, looking both angry and concerned. Stiles scrabbles against the tree, trying to _get away_ , and then he realizes that the person looking down at him is just another boy, the same age as Stiles. Behind him, the wolves buzz in the distance.

Buzz?

Stiles’ head jerks up from where it was plastered against his desk, a sheaf of paper stuck to the side of his face. He rips it off and tosses it back onto his desk, then snatches it back up again to grab his phone from underneath it. There are two new texts, both from Danny.

“Shit!”

Stiles leaps from his desk and bounds down the stairs, shouting a quick, “GottagodadmeetingScotttostudy,” and slamming out of the house before his dad can even manage a ‘bye.’

He cannot _believe_ Scott.

 

*

"I don't get it. I thought you were BFFs with Hale."

Jackson is standing in the middle of the hallway with Danny, Greenberg, and Scott. Stiles frowns disapprovingly at Scott, who just shrugs in annoyance.

"I didn't think you wanted to offend your new buttbuddy," he says, by way of explaining why Stiles had to be invited by _Danny_ , and not him. That is just rich.

"He's not my buttbuddy!"

“How did you even know we were here?” Greenberg asks. Stiles whirls around to glare at him, then snaps at Scott, “I can’t believe you replaced me with _him_.”

"Save your lover's spat for another time, guys. Greenberg, _I_ invited him, since this was his idea," Danny says. "Are we doing this, or what?"

“Yes,” Jackson says, opening his backpack. He pulls out a tube of something and tosses it to Stiles. Stiles holds it up.

It’s super glue.

Stiles grins. “Let’s do this.”

 

*

Not for the first time, Derek curses his ability to metabolize caffeine too fast for it to have any effect. He’s not normally so _tired_ , but every time he closes his eyes lately, he pictures Stiles with glowing cheeks and leaves in his hair, or him laughing at one of his stupid puns, or him just sitting around. That last one is particularly pathetic. It’s better than what he normally pictures— _flames crawling up the back of his house, smoke billowing up high into the blue sky_ —but only just.

No, that’s a lie. Anything is _miles_ better than what he usually pictures when he closes his eyes at night.

This is it. He’s finally lost it. Considering the debacle that was his last relationship, it would be the most logical for him to take a vow of perpetual solitude and move to Tibet. _Not_ to keep himself up at night thinking about happy brown eyes.

Derek sighs and opens his lock. He grabs the handle and pulls his locker open, only it—doesn’t open. He tries again. It doesn’t budge. He yanks at the handle. The whole door comes off with a shrieking rend of metal.

“Shit!” Derek yelps, quickly trying to stick the door back onto the locker. Behind him, someone laughs with delight and surprise. Derek whirls around, holding the door up like a shield.

“Dude!” Stiles crows, snapping a picture with his phone. Derek takes some comfort in the knowledge that his current bug eyed surprise will have ruined that picture. “God, this is even better than I thought it would be!”

“Lay off the ‘roids, Hale,” Jackson says, smirking.

Derek flushes, tucking the locker door under his arm. “Rust corrosion,” he mumbles, the back of his neck hot, and shoves the door into his locker. As if that would solve everything.

He is not at all surprised when Stiles just laughs harder. Some pretend friend _he_ is. Derek grabs his books, which nearly sends the locker door tumbling out again (and sets Stiles and Jackson off again; they’re actually _leaning_ on each other) and escapes to class.

So the ceasefire is over. Fine. Two can play that game.

Stiles still sits next to him in English, and again in Chem, under Mr. Harris’ approving eye. Mr. Harris has yet to give Derek the same kind of trouble as he does Stiles and Scott, probably because Derek has always enjoyed Chemistry and also—Derek is an athlete. Mr. Harris seems to have a weird _thing_ for athletes, if how he treats Jackson is anything to go by.

Gross.

“Hey,” Stiles murmurs, leaning towards Derek. “You’re not gonna get all butthurt again, are you? Because I mean, this time we got all you guys, not just you, so you don’t have to worry about being targeted, or something. Not that I was targeting you, since I’m not a _bully_. Jackson’s a bully, not me. But if you’re going to get all sulky again—”

Derek reaches over, draws up Stiles’ three sleeves, and upends a small, half empty bottle of gentian violet on his bare arm. Stiles jerks back, letting out a startled laugh that he quickly turns into a cough.

“Now we match,” Derek says, wiggling his fingers at Stiles. They’re still purple. Faded, now, but decidedly purple.

“I can’t believe you copied my prank.”

“It’s better than BFF necklaces,” Derek says, with a toothy grin.

Stiles actually has to leave the class, he’s laughing so hard.

 

*

When Derek slams through the kitchen that even, he’s radiating a _nauseating_ amount of happiness. He reaches for a banana just as Laura bounds in after him, going for the fruit as well. Derek stares down at her, silently, until Laura takes a small step back, bowing her head just a little.

Peter scrunches his nose, turning to his brother-in-law.

“I think I liked it better when he was being ‘emo’.”

“Shut up, Peter,” Jakob says, watching his son. He _really_ wasn’t looking forward to a Laura part two. He doesn’t know much about ‘emos,’ just that when Laura was going through her phase, Derek had Cora and Connor cover her room with pictures of emus.

Jakob hops up from his chair, going to his son and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “Hey, son. Let’s go train, yeah?”

Derek looks up at his dad, smiling crookedly. “Yeah, all right. Oh, but I have to head back out after dinner.”

“Oh yeah? Got something big planned for your Friday night?”

“Gonna duct tape the lacrosse team’s lockers.”

Jakob grins, relief loosening something in his chest. Talia might not approve of Derek playing pranks, but Jakob was almost pathetically grateful that Derek was back to doing stupid, harmless teenage things. “Lacrosse is a terrible sport, anyway. Don’t ever play it.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Good boy. Say, why is your hand purple, anyway?”

 

*

Beacon Hills High School is dark and quiet that evening, the only light coming from a flickering lamp post. Just outside its crooked fence, a blue jeep comes to a stop, headlights flicking off. Stiles tumbles out, hefting his backpack over one shoulder and switching on a flashlight. He doesn’t really need it; the moon is hanging fat and full in the sky, lighting his way easily, but having the extra light makes the school less creepy. He casts a furtive glance around, then ducks under a large hole in the fence.

He heads towards the school, shoulders hunched up around his ears. There’s something uncomfortable about about being on school at night. Every shadow looks like it’s hiding something; Stiles swings his flashlight around somewhat erratically to catch any boogieman that would dare to sneak up on him.

He gets all the way to the back entrance of the school and even has one hand on the doorknob when he hears a long, low groan from somewhere behind him. The beam of his flashlight bounces all around the back of the school, until it lands on the old gardening shed.

“Hello?” Stiles asks, taking a hesitant step towards the shed.

It’s silent for so long that Stiles considers going back to the door, when there’s another pained noise. Stiles presses his lips together tightly and moves towards the shed. If someone is hurt, Stiles _has_ to help them. And whoever this guy is, he definitely _sounds_ injured.

He goes around the side of the shed to the entrance, and then stumbles forward as two hands roughly shove him inside. He spins around just in time for the door to be slammed in his face.

“Hey!” he yells, trying the handle. When it doesn’t budge, he hammers his fists on the door. “Hey! Derek, is that you? That’s very funny! Let me out now!”

There is no response. Stiles kicks it one more time in frustration and spins around, leaning against the door. He figures they’ll give him an hour before they let him out again. It’s a little spooky in the shed: dark, save for a small sliver of light from under the door, and with a pair of gold eyes blazing at him from the other side of the shed.

Stiles screams.

 

*

“What was that?”

Isaac jumps and whips around from where he’s duct taping giant hearts on Scott’s locker. He presses further into the locker, looking scared and _way_ too guilty for a harmless prank.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this,” Isaac mutters quietly to himself, shoving trembling hands into his pockets. “My dad’s going to _kill_ me. Derek, come on. Let’s just go. This place is creepy as fuck.”

Derek presses his lips together. He knows there’s been something going on with Isaac, can feel the constant, low level pain and fear coming from the guy. Every time he pushes, though, Isaac shuts down a little more. It was part of the reason he invited Isaac out; he wants Isaac to know that he always has someone to just get away with, if he needs to.

In hindsight, making a perpetually freaked out dude break curfew is probably not one of his most brilliant plans.

There’s a ding from an incoming text, and both Isaac and Derek take their phones out. Isaac puts his away and Derek frowns down at his phone.

_Got Stilinski good. - Matt D_

How the hell did Matt get his number? Derek locks his phone and puts it back in his pocket, scowling at Jackson’s locker. He might have gone a little overboard. There’s so much duct tape on it that it sticks out a full inch further than the locker beside it.

Isaac has calmed down enough to move on to Danny’s locker. He’s a lot more conservative with the amount of tape he uses on Danny’s locker; even though he’s a lacrosse jock, everyone loves Danny.

“Hey, Isaac. What do you know about Matt Daehler?”

Isaac snorts. “Besides that he’s a giant douchebag? Not much.”

“I just got a weird text from him. Said he ‘got Stilinski good’—”

A scream shatters the relative silence of the empty hallway. Derek jumps and whirls around, which makes Isaac drop the duct tape and jump as well.

“Derek?” Isaac’s freaked again, but Derek ignores him.

“ _What was that_?”

“I don’t know, man, I didn’t hear anything. You’re freaking me out, dude—”

Derek flings the duct tape away and sprints down the hall, because he knows what that is. He knows _who_ that is.

 

*

Stiles wakes up to the sound of a quiet conversation to the left of his bed. He frowns tiredly at the ceiling, trying to remember how and when he went back home. The ceiling’s off, though, and Stiles registers the faint beep of a heart monitor.

“What,” he says, and when speaking feels like getting stabbed in the chest, lets out a small, pained, “oh.”

“ _Stiles_ ,” his dad says; he sounds _really_ upset. Stiles blinks tiredly at him.

“What happened?”

“You were attacked,” his dad says, running his hand through Stiles’ hair.

“By what?”

“The doctors say your wounds look similar to the mountain lion attacks we’ve been seeing around here. You were lucky Derek Hale heard you scream.”

Lucky.

“How are you feeling?”

He considers it for a moment, before deciding that he really doesn’t feel that good at all. Beyond the floaty, numb feeling, his chest is on _fire_. “When can I go home? I really want to go home. I hate hospitals." Stiles' voice is small. He looks down at his chest, plucking at the top of his blanket.

His dad stands, looking older than Stiles has ever seen him: deep lines groove the sides of his eyes and across his forehead. “Let me talk to your doctor.

With the help of Melissa McCall, his dad is able to convince the doctor to let Stiles leave that very night. The cuts slashing across his chest required stitches, but they’re relatively shallow. He’s under strict instructions to stay in his bed for the next couple of days, which actually isn’t that hard to obey. The pain meds from the hospital wore off _way_ too quickly, leaving Stiles to feel like he’s been kicked in the chest. Repeatedly. By a giant in cleats.

He doesn’t look much better. Stiles has always been more of the ‘ivory complexioned’ and thus prone to bruising. The purple, black, and green mottling nicely contrasts the white bandages covering the three long gashes down his chest.

“Healing _sucks_ ,” Stiles tells Scott his second day home, dropping down onto his pillow.

“School’s closed on Monday!” Scott says, excitedly.

“La dee da,” Stiles says, twirling a finger.

“Not that you were going to go to school on Monday, anyway, I mean—” Scott coughs into his fist. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I lost a fight with Wolverine.”

Scott peers down at his bandages, wincing slightly. “Yeah, man. I can’t believe you got attacked by a _mountain lion_.”

Stiles frowns up at the stain on his ceiling. When he was seven years old, he decided to experiment with gravity and a water balloon. It ended poorly for everyone. He isn’t even sure how the water managed to stain his ceiling like that. He even put a paper plate moon and some of those glow-in-the-dark stars around it to give it a _Starry Night_ feel.

Stiles stares at the paper plate.

“It wasn’t a mountain lion,” he says.

“What?”

Stiles lolls his head towards Scott, staring intently at him. “It wasn’t a mountain lion. It was bipedal.”

“Oh,” Scott says, scratching the back of his head. “Uh, what was it then?”

Stiles manages to push himself up into a sitting position, flinching and wincing as his wounds stretch. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Not human, not a mountain lion.”

“So you’re saying some, what, magical creature attacked you?” Scott asks, flatly.

“It was a full moon on Friday,” says Stiles, mostly to himself.

“So—what, you think—werewolves?!”

“I don’t know what I think,” Stiles sighs, stretching back down again with a groan. Stiles has always had an uncanny ability to jump to the wildest conclusions and get it right, but even he can see that this is majorly reaching.

Scott, bless his soul, doesn’t push it. Instead, he stands up. “I’m going to get some water. Want me to grab you a glass?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

Stiles closes his eyes when Scott leaves. He knows he sounds crazy; werewolves, _really_ , but he can’t exactly explain to Scott what he saw. He doesn’t know how to describe how the yellow eyes burned unnaturally at him; not like they were reflecting light, but like they were _glowing_.

When he opens his eyes, Derek is sitting at the side of his bed.

“Jesus Christ!” Stiles yells, flinging pillows everywhere.

“I didn’t shove you into that shed,” Derek says, eyes narrowed.

“Are you _trying_ to finish off what you started?! What are you doing here? Did my dad let you in? God, I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“You’re not listening,” Derek growls. “I said, I didn’t shove you into that shed.”

“Don’t lie just because—just because you’re feeling guilty!”

“I’m not lying, and I don’t feel guilty.” Derek drops his eyes at the last part to Stiles’ chest, the corners of his eyes tightening. Probably he does feel guilty. Good, Stiles thinks, viciously. “I didn’t trap you there.”

“So then what were you doing at the school on a Friday night if not to shove me in a shed?”

“I was going on a date,” Derek says, rolling his eyes.

Something weird happens to Stiles’ heart. He’s heard the cliches ‘skip a beat’ or ‘clenches,’ but he’s never actually felt it before until now. He stares at Derek for a long minute, not sure if he heard right, even _less_ sure why it made him feel like he missed a curb and is left stumbling into a busy intersection. You know, considering Derek shoved him in a shed and all.

“I was kidding,” Derek says, looking at him strangely. “Why would I take a date to school? That’s lame.”

“Oh,” Stiles says.

“If you don’t believe me, ask Isaac. We were duct taping all your lockers shut.” He frowns. “I’ll remove yours on Tuesday.”

“What about Scott’s?”

“Scott’s stays.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. He sinks back into his pillows. “I was going to put porn in your locker. I think it’s still in my backpack, actually.” He winces. “I really, really hope that my dad didn’t look in my backpack.”

Derek laughs. Stiles turns to him, eyes widening. Stiles doesn’t think he’s ever heard Derek laugh. He’s ducking his head slightly, as if trying to hide it. Stiles grins back; he can’t help it, Derek just sounds so happy. All it took was for Stiles to get attacked by a monster and admit to stashing porn in his backpack.

“What are you doing here?”

Derek tenses and whips around so fast that Stiles thinks he’s going to fall off the side of the bed. He doesn’t. Stiles would have. Stiles would have probably ended up on the other side of the room in his failed attempts to keep upright.

Scott is standing at the door to Stiles’ room, expression thunderous.

“Scott,” Stiles says, tiredly. The last thing he needs is for Scott and Derek to get in a pissing contest in the middle of his room.

“Why is he here, Stiles?” Scott barks.

“I’m going,” Derek says. He stands, looking down at Stiles with an unreadable expression.

“Derek,” Stiles sighs.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Scott says.

Stiles snorts, because what, is Scott ten? But Derek takes Stiles’ laugh the wrong way: his face shutters off and he walks out, shutting the door hard.

Damnit. He wasn’t laughing at _Derek_.

“I can’t believe the nerve of that guy!” Scott rants. “ _He’s_ the reason why you’re injured in the first place!”

“He’s not,” Stiles says.

“Just because you’re best friends with him now doesn’t mean—”

“We’re not,” Stiles says. “We’re not, idiot, _you’re_ my best friend, and he didn’t attack me.”

Scott pauses mid-rant. “He didn’t?”

“No. He was duct taping out lockers shut with Isaac.” Stiles shrugs. “I mean, he might be lying, I’ll have to ask Isaac, but I believe him.”

“Oh,” Scott says, deflating. “He’s still an asshole.”

“No argument there.”

“What was he doing here, anyway?”

“He was the one who scared away the thing that wasn’t a mountain lion.”

“You don’t _actually_ think werewolves, do you?” Scott asks dubiously, but with that hint of the excited wonder that drew Stiles to him in the first place.

“I don’t know, man,” Stiles says, then sits up again with a wince. “But I know what will. Hand me my laptop, will you?”

 

*

Derek sighs and closes his locker door. Then he catches it when it falls off again, glancing around with nervous embarrassment. No one’s paying attention him, so he shoves it back on its hinges, grabs his book, and slams it shut again. He feels bad for the poor slob who’s going to get the locker after him.

“Did Derek tell you? I got Stilinski good on Friday.”

Derek cocks his head to the side (earning a strange look from some pink haired chick). Matt’s smug voice is coming from down the hall.

“Hmm,” Boyd hums disinterestedly.

“You know that old gardening shed? I pushed the dumbass in it and—”

Matt’s voice fades away and Derek sees red. Literally. Usually that means he needs to calm the fuck down and back the hell away, but all of a sudden he's got Matt Daehler a foot off the ground and and pressed up against the lockers.

People shriek in surprise around them, but Derek just tightens his grip. He can tell Matt is terrified, can feel him quaking beneath his hands, but he can't bring himself to loosen his grip. It’s taking all his control to not just wolf out right there.

"You could have killed him!"

"I didn't—I didn't—!"

"Derek. Derek! You have to calm down."

Derek twitches in response to the voice behind him. His grip tightens, tearing through the fabric.

“Do you _want_ to get expelled, idiot?” A hand grabs his shoulder, shaking him slightly. "Come on man, he's not worth it."

Derek loosens his grip, dropping the shaky Matt back to his feet. “Get out of here,” he snaps.

“Matt!” Stiles calls, from over Derek’s shoulder. Matt glances back, pale faced. “If you narc on Derek for going all hulk there, I’ll be sure to tell everyone just who shoved me in the shed on Friday.”

Matt adjusts his shirt and glares, but turns around and walks off, fast enough to be just under a jog.

“See ya,” Stiles says, wiggling his purple fingers at Matt’s retreating back. He’s a little pale himself, eyes tight in the corners from pain. Derek scowls. What the hell is he doing here? He should still be in bed. Stiles rolls his eyes and grabs Derek by the wrist, hurriedly dragging him in the opposite direction from Matt.

“Come on, idiot. Do you _always_ lurk around the scene of the crime?”

“Stiles, Matt was the one who—”

“I know, I heard.” Stiles glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "Would you really have beat him up?"

"Yes," Derek says, without hesitation.

"I'm glad you didn't," Stiles says. “Yeah, he’s a jackass, but he couldn’t have known that the w—that the mountain lion was lurking in the shed.”

"He's an asshole," Derek insists. "He would have left you there all night."

"I know. I'm just not sure if he's a murderous asshole."

"Better safe than sorry," Derek say, grimly.

Stiles rubs at the purple stain on the cuff of his sleeve. He must have been wearing that shirt during the gentian violet debacle. “So, uh, does this mean you actually do consider me as a friend? Or are you too big of a jerk to admit it?”

Derek sighs in defeat. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Stiles whoops and punches both his fists into the air, totally letting it get to his head, and then he yelps in pain because he’s an _idiot_. He still slings his arm around Derek’s shoulder, beaming. Derek looks at him, and Stiles is just _right_ there, inches away from Derek's' face. He’s still smiling a little, but it’s starting to fade as he also realizes just how close they really are, and his heart does that funny little skip again. Derek’s eyes widen.

“Are we having a moment?” Stiles asks, eyes also widening.

“I think so?”

“That is so weird.”

Stiles takes a quick step back, dropping his arm from Derek’s shoulder. They stare at each other awkwardly, and then Stiles clears his throat.

“So, uh, class.”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

It’s the first time in a week they don’t sit next to each other.


	3. Chapter 3

Derek meticulously locks every window in the house, touching each glass pane after. Then he locks all the back doors. He steps out of the house, locking the main door behind him.

Peter unlocks the door to step out after him, looking down at a list.

Thirty seconds later, the door opens again and Peter is shoved back in. Derek slams the door after him, locking the deadbolt from outside.

"You know," Peter says grumpily to Talia, who's sprawled out on the couch, flipping through a book. "Derek would make a terrible Alpha."

"That's what the training's for, little bro," says Talia cheerfully, not looking up from her book.

 

*

“Stiles.”

Lately, the sheriff’s schedule has been conspicuously light. Stiles pauses in the act of grabbing the milk. It’s strange; the more Stiles sees his dad, the more he realizes just how much he misses him.

“Dad,” Stiles smiles, sitting across from him at the table. He grabs the box of cereal and his dad’s empty bowl, filling it for himself. His dad crinkles his nose, but doesn’t say anything. Stiles wonders if this is one of those things a female presence in the house would correct, but he viciously tamps down that thought.

“Are you okay? How’s your chest?” His dad is looking over some important official document, but he lowers it to roll an eyeball over Stiles.

Stiles resists the urge to pick at one of the healing scabs. The pain’s got nothing on how bad it _itches_. Stiles is going half out of his mind resisting the temptation to go at it like a kid with chicken pox. He’s been that kid with chicken pox. It never ends well.

“Yeah. Yep. I’m good. Totally cool here. Cool as a really cold cucumber. Why?”

“You haven’t been sleeping much.”

His dad, the sheriff. Stiles is usually so good at keeping quiet when he can’t sleep at night. There must be some tell. He reaches up and touches under one eye. It’s puffy.

“Have you ever felt like everyone around you knows this really good joke and are all laughing about it, and you kind of laugh with them too, even if you don’t actually know what the joke is?” Stiles asks, poking at the bowl of cereal with his spoon. “Except everyone knows you don’t know the joke, so they’re laughing at both the joke and at you?”

“Frequently,” his dad says, sipping his coffee and not even batting an eye at Stiles’ rambling.

Stiles slumps over his cereal. “Yeah. Well, I’m going to find out what this stupid joke is if it kills me.”

 

*

Being real-friends with Derek isn’t much different from being fake-friends with him. He doesn’t magically become Mr. Fun To Be Around; in fact, his death glares are even _more_ frequent and he’s become even _more_ reserved. Stiles sullenly thinks that Derek’s acknowledgement of friendship was just lip service.

This doesn’t stop Derek from sitting next to Stiles in the cafeteria, tray loaded with an assortment of carbs, meats, and cheese.

“How are you not eight hundred pounds?” Stiles asks, eyeing the tray.

“Genetics,” Derek says, lifting a slice of pizza to take a huge bite. He glances at Stiles out of the corner of his eye. “How’s your chest?”

Stiles is touched. Scott’s been too caught up with whatever new drama is going on with Allison to pay attention to his brutalized friend—not that Stiles is looking for Scott to dote on him, but a little concern wouldn’t be frowned upon. It’s nice, and Derek isn’t normally _nice_.

“It’s good,” Stiles says, turning back to his plate. Derek’s kindness is almost too odd for him to deal.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Uh, yeah, a little. Not like agonizing. Mostly it’s _itchy_.”

Derek leans in, chin slightly tilted up. He looks almost like he’s sniffing Stiles, which is just too weird for words.

A tray clatters in front of them. Derek and Stiles spring away from each other, which results in Stiles flailing wildly and tumbling off the bench, because Stiles has all the grace of a colt with too many limbs and not nearly enough spatial coordination. Okay, now he really does hurt. _Ow_.

“A-hem,” Scott says as Stiles peeks over the table. “Mind if we sit here, or are we interrupting something?”

“Be my guest,” Derek says, solicitously.

Not only does Scott, Allison, Jackson, Danny, and even Lydia (strange) crowd into the table, but Erica, Isaac, and Boyd squeeze in as well. It’s a tight fit. Stiles is crushed up against Derek’s side, which is really a lot closer than he’s comfortable with at the moment.

“You guys, really?” Stiles demands, as their friends wage a silent, vicious battle that involves deadly glares and threatening chewing. (Aside from Lydia, Danny, and Boyd, who are above such nonsense.)

“We just noticed that you two have been awfully buddy-buddy lately,” Erica says, all innocence.

“That’s because we’re dating,” says Stiles, perfectly seriously.

No one says a single word for nearly a full minute, and then the table explodes. Scott actually flings his fries everywhere in his shock, much to Allison’s annoyance. Both Isaac and Erica start demanding answers at the same time in nearly the same pitch of voice. Jackson shouts “I KNEW IT” over and over while Danny and Boyd determinedly concentrate on their food, pretending like their friends aren’t collectively melting down. Lydia puts on lip gloss.

And Derek. Derek’s staring at Stiles with huge eyes, but his eyebrows are progressively getting lower as he cottons on to exactly what game Stiles is playing.

As far as pranks go, this is the best one Stiles has played yet.

 

*

"What's this?" Scott asks, when Stiles drops the stack of papers on his desk. "A comprehensive list of _why you shouldn’t date Derek Hale_?"

Stiles snorts, taking the empty seat in front of Scott. "I should have never taught you sarcasm. You're a menace."

“No but seriously dude, Derek? Why not someone else? Why not—why not Danny?”

“First of all, just because Danny’s into dudes doesn’t mean he’s into me. He’s made that perfectly clear more than once. Second of all, do you really have a problem with it?”

He was planning on bringing Scott into the prank, but suddenly his response is really important. He’s not—well, he doesn’t know what he is, nor is he quite sure what Derek is to him, but it is critical that no matter what he is or isn’t, Scott will accept him.

Scott tilts his chin down at looks at Stiles from under his brow. As gooey as Scott usually is, he has a mean glare. “The only reason why I have a problem with it is because he’s _Derek_. _Not_ because he’s a guy.”

Stiles deflates. “Well, good.”

“I can’t believe you’d think—”

“I don’t know what I think,” Stiles interrupts. He’s not sure what his face looks like, but it’s enough to make Scott let go of his anger.

“Did you really have to murder like a million trees for your research?” Scott says, changing the subject, because Scott is a good person. He picks up the top piece of paper.

“Excuse you, I use 100% recycled paper.”

“So what are we supposed to do with this?” Scott asks, not even bothering to pretend to read the papers he’s flipping through. “Jesus, Stiles, did you print out the whole internet?”

“Yes,” Stiles says, grabbing half the stack from him and leaning forward, using his inside voice. “Most of this is garbage, and you wouldn’t believe some of the freaky shit you can find online—”

“I absolutely do not want to know. Ever.”

“—but one constant is that the easiest way to take out a werewolf is by using wolfsbane.”

“Wolfsbane?”

Stiles shuffles through the papers until he finds the sheet he’s looking for. He hands it to Scott, who frowns down at the purple flowers as if they just insulted his mother.

“So, what, we’re going to sneak into someone’s garden and steal their violets?” Scott asks.

Stiles reaches over the table to smack Scott on his forehead with the heel of his hand, because he deserves it.

“No, idiot. We’re going to a nursery after school today.”

Scott's face screws up in confusion and Stiles quickly holds up a hand because he knows where Scott is going to go with that and wants to prevent the stupid.

"Not baby-nursery. Flower-nursery."

"Well, how should I know?" Scott huffs. "It's not like I need to regularly buy petunias."

 

*

“Stiles?”

Stiles whirls around, holding the scissors out like a weapon. Sheriff Stilinski looks at him, eyebrows raised, then back to his kitchen table, which is completely covered with potted purple flowers. Stiles has a neat stack of trimmings behind him and there’s a mangled plant on the other side of the table, where Scott is conspicuously absent. Stiles’ phone is next to one of the pots, buzzing determinedly with text after ignored text.

“Uh, hi, Dad,” Stiles says, lowering the scissors. “I bet this looks weird, but I promise that it’s for the greater good. I think. If not, well, I’ve been thinking about planting a new garden, anyway.”

“I—don’t even want to know, do I.”

“Probably not.”

“Right,” the sheriff shakes his head. This doesn’t even make the top ten Weirdest Things Stiles Has Done this year. “Clean up when you’re done. And don’t forget to take your antibiotics. I've got graveyard shift tonight, so I won't be back til the morning." He surveys the table one more time. "Don't stay up too late 'gardening'."

"Yeah, Dad."

The sheriff just shakes his head again and ruffles Stiles' hair, then leaves him to his horticulture.

Stiles picks up his phone, not at all surprised at the four new texts from Scott in response to his **where did you go**.

**had 2 bail**

**sry allison wants 2 tlk**

**cant make it 2nite**

**besides werewolves arent real**

Stiles locks his phone and shoves it back into his pocket, swinging his empty backpack onto his seat. He carefully arranges the flowers into the bag, saving one to tuck into his back pocket.

Good old Scott. Never there when you need him. At least, not when Allison calls.

 

*

Stiles is about thirty minutes into his trek in the forest before he grudgingly admits that Scott might have a point. Jesus, it’s cold. He loops the scarf one more time around his neck, covering the bottom half of his face, and pulls the wolfsbane from the back of his pocket, twirling it between his fingers as he walks. It looks pathetic: half of its petals are crushed and the other half are wilting.

Probably it was just a mountain lion. He had been so certain that whatever attacked him in the shed was unnatural, but—werewolves? Clearly just hallucinatory daydreams of a brain hopped up too many painkillers. Time to cut his losses and go home.

He’s just turned around to skulk back to his car when there's a crash of about a thousand branches being broken at once. Out leaps a guy whose eyebrows have crawled off his face down his jaw and who has a mouthful of about a million really, really sharp teeth.

Stiles yelps and flings the flower at him.

The monster freezes, face shifting until a surprised _Derek Hale_ is staring at him.

Derek sneezes.

"Stiles, what the fuck?"

"Derek," Stiles says, "what the _fuck?_ "

"Did you just throw wolfsbane at me?"

"Yeah, because you're a _werewolf_. Oh my god, of course you're a werewolf. Werewolves are real." Stiles gapes at him for a long moment, then punches both his fists into the air. “I _knew_ it!”

"That's not how you use wolfsbane," Derek says, ignoring Stiles ecstatic epiphany. “That would be like if I threw a poisonous mushroom at you. No effect unless it’s ingested or it hits the bloodstream.”

"I don't care, _you're a werewolf._ "

There's another crash of even more branches being demolished. Derek jumps and grabs Stiles by the arm. Derek has really long nails that curve at the end and are actually more like claws, if Stiles were to think about it.

"Oh my god," Stiles says, staring at his hand.

"Paranormal crisis later, run now!"

They run. Derek keeps sprinting ahead, before remembering that puny humans can’t run on all fours, what the _hell_ , Derek, and circling back. The third time he has to run back, Stiles is doubled over, one hand on his chest. He thinks he must have bust open a stitch.

“ _Move_ ,” Derek demands.

“Yeah, okay dude,” Stiles pants out, glaring. “I’d really like to, but not all of us are creatures of the night. Also, I’m bleeding out here.”

Derek sniffs the air and Stiles thinks, oh. Derek really was sniffing him in the cafeteria.

“You reopened your wounds,” Derek says, accusingly.

“I mean, we were running for our lives. I didn’t just do it for the hell of it.”

Derek looks really pissed off for some reason. He turns away from Stiles, as if he’s considering just leaving him there, but then crouches down.

“Get on my back.”

“What, seriously? You can’t really carry me and run, can you?” Stiles says, wondering. “Are you like, super strong?”

“If you don’t get on my back right now, I’m going to leave you to be eaten by the Omega.”

“Getting,” Stiles says, crawling onto Derek’s back. Derek stands, as if Stiles weighs nothing more than a baby, and bounds off.

Derek keeps up the bruising pace until they've covered like, ten miles, before he abruptly stops, dropping Stiles without ceremony.

"Asshole," Stiles says. He looks down at his shirt. Blood is spotting through the material, but since he doesn’t look like an extra from a slasher film, he figures he’ll survive.

"You're welcome," Derek says. "It won't come here. We're too close to my home."

“Your home,” Stiles says, slowly. “Which is full of werewolves. Because you’re a werewolf.”

Derek carefully studies the trees over Stiles’ head. Stiles follows his gaze nervously. There’s nothing there.

“Yeah, maybe I am. And?” Derek sounds a little spooked and a lot defensive.

“That is so cool! I knew I was right! Werewolves _are_ real!” Stiles crows and punches his fist in the air, then shrugs when Derek looks at him weirdly. “It is. It is so cool. I mean, I’d figured out that werewolves were, you know, a thing, but I’ve never actually met any. Unless you count the one who attacked me, which I don’t, since he was more with the killing and less of the exchanging pleasantries. _What_? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You know about werewolves?” Derek asks, weakly. His eyes are huge, eyebrows winged up so high that they’re half-disappeared under his hair. It’s like he’s about to go into a full out panic attack. Stiles can understand. That is a big secret to be carrying around. He forces himself to tamp down on his excitement.

“Is that why you have wolfsbane?” Derek demands suddenly, accusingly. He takes a step forward. “Do you want to kill werewolves? Are you a hunter?”

“What? No!” Stiles waves both of his hands in adamant denial. “No, you got it all wrong. I was going after the one who attacked me. I didn’t think it should have free reign to attack anyone else, you know? It’s not like I could go to my dad and be like, ‘Dad, werewolves.’ My dad. Who is the sheriff. In case you were getting any ideas. Killing ideas.”

Derek glances over his shoulder, obviously contemplating making a break for it and leaving Stiles to fend for himself. Stiles brings out the big guns.

“He’s been attacking a lot of people, right? All those ‘mountain lion’ attacks?”

“Uh, yeah,” Derek says, looking at the forest again, actually taking a small step towards it. “Look, my mom is usually the one who talks to people about this. She’d be better at answering all your questions.”

Stiles follows him even though Derek isn’t expecting it, by the surprised look on his face. “Do you know about the other werewolf that attacked me? Is it someone from your pack? Werewolves have packs, right?”

Derek narrows his eyes at him. “Yes, we have packs. No, it’s no one from mine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No one from my pack would attack a harmless human, Stiles, especially not—” He cuts himself off. Stiles frowns at him, but Derek doesn't continue the thought. “And anyway, I would have recognized their scent in the shed if it was someone from my pack.”

Stiles’ eyes light up. “So you _do_ have a super sniffer. That’s why you kept sniffing me! So, we all have unique identifying scents? What do _I_ smell like?” He shoves his hand under Derek’s nose, in case he needs a refresher, but Derek bats him away. He’s starting to look lot less freaked out; probably he’s realizing Stiles is nothing but an idiot.

“You smell like stupid,” Derek says, snottily, then dodges the half-hearted swat from Stiles with a chuff of laughter.

And then a monster falls out of the sky on top of Derek.

He looks nothing at all like Derek does in his werewolf form; he’s covered in blonde fur, for one, unlike Derek, who is relatively hairless save the chops. For another, his face is almost completely inhuman, except for the forward facing eyes. He has a long, almost delicate snout, which he opens wide to snap at Derek’s face. Derek pulls both his feet up to his chest and jackrabbits out, launching the other wolf off him.

He kicks back up to his feet without using his hands. Stiles is impressed, all the way up until Derek pulls out his cellphone and begins scrolling down the screen.

“What are you doing?!” Stiles yelps, diving out when the wolf decides _he_ is an easier target and swipes at his neck with long, yellow claws. “This is not the time to update your Facebook, Derek!”

“I’m calling my mom, idiot—”

The wolf lunges at Derek, knocking the phone out of his hand. They collapse together in a heap of limbs and low growls. Derek lets out a sharp whine of pain and Stiles cries out with him, when he sees that the wolf has put his entire fist through Derek’s shoulder.

“Derek!” Stiles cries, looking around for something he can use to help. He spots Derek’s phone in the corner and goes for it, but Derek throws his head back and howls. For a moment, everyone goes still as the desperate, pained sound echoes through the forest.

In the distance, there are long, haunting howls of response. Seconds later, it’s as if the entire forest is roaring, leaves rustling and what sounds like _entire trees_ cracking in half.

The other werewolf springs away from Derek, one arm covered in blood and gore. He tilts his head up, scanning the trees, and then bounds away, disappearing into the thick brush. Stiles leaps to Derek’s side, trembling hands hovering over the wound on Derek’s shoulder.

“Derek,” he says, desperately. “Derek, Derek. It’s going to be okay, man. You’re going to be okay.”

“Stiles,” Derek says. Blood is trickling down his chin. Stiles has no idea what to do. He thinks he should be applying pressure, but doesn’t want to hurt Derek further. What if he makes it worse? Stiles screws his eyes shut and presses his hands against Derek’s shoulder.

“ _Ow_. What the fuck, Stiles!”

“We have to staunch the bleeding, idiot. Do you _want_ to bleed out?”

“Stiles, it’s—”

“ _What did you do to him_?”

Stiles looks up and then falls on his ass, scrambling back, though he keeps close to Derek, positioning himself between Derek and the suddenly very crowded forest. There are four other werewolves surrounding them, one of which appears to be an _actual_ wolf, bright red eyes gleaming.

One of the male werewolves is crouched low, gold eyes sparking furiously as he prepares to lunge at Stiles, ostensibly to murder him dead. The large black wolf leaps first, headbutting the man hard enough to knock him back several steps.

The wolf turns back to Derek and Stiles, then stands on its hind legs, fur melting away and face smoothing out until it’s the breathtakingly beautiful Talia Hale staring at them. Stiles’ eyes pop a little, and then he quickly averts his gaze, since she’s completely naked.

“You’re protecting him,” Talia says. She sounds a little amused.

“Um,” Stiles says, suddenly embarrassed. When he looks back up, she’s thankfully dressed in a casual black dress. “To my defense, I didn’t realize you were his family since, you know.” He waves at his face vaguely, then flinches. Was he being offensive? Probably. Stiles is often unintentionally offensive.

“Look, it doesn’t matter! You _have_ to help him!”

“Stiles,” Derek says, wrapping a hand around Stiles’ wrist. His face is completely blank, except a small uptick at the corners of his mouth. “I’m okay, really.”

“He shoved his fist through you!”

“I’m okay,” Derek repeats, then pulls at the hole of his shirt so that Stiles can see his smooth, unmarred skin. If Stiles wasn’t already on his ass, he would have fallen again.

“You—how did you—”

“Genetics,” Derek says, smiling.

Super smelling, super strength, super speed, and now: super healing. Derek is just—super. Stiles gapes, unabashedly awestruck, until one of the older male werewolves clears his throat, amused.

“You must be very confused,” Talia says, gently.

“Not really,” Stiles says, dragging his eyes away from Derek’s shoulder. “Well, maybe a little, but not about the whole werewolf thing. I do a lot of research.”

“So you know about us,” the younger female—Derek’s sister, presumably—growls. Stiles instinctively presses closer to Derek.

“Laura,” Talia admonishes.

Laura subsides, but her gaze is fixated unwaveringly on Stiles’ face. If he makes one wrong move towards Derek’s still weakened form, Stiles knows she would be on him in a second.

“Not for very long,” Stiles reassures, quickly. “Just since I was attacked, you know, I mean, did you hear about my attack? I’m assuming you did, since, like, everyone was talking about it for days. Complete strangers in the grocery store would stop me about it. They told me it was a mountain lion attacked me, except mountain lions don’t stand on their hind legs and don’t have eyes that actually _glow_. Also, that night was a full moon, so.” He trails off, grinning weakly at the Hale’s stunned expressions. “So, werewolves.”

“That is an—exceptional conclusion to jump to,” the amused older man says, glancing at Derek, then back at Stiles. “Most humans will find ‘normal’ ways to explain away the ‘supernatural.’ You explained away the ‘normal’ with the ‘supernatural’. But in this case, you were partially incorrect. There are werewolves, obviously, but I don’t believe you were attacked by one.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, confused.

“That wasn’t a werewolf,” Derek agrees, pushing himself to his feet. Stiles hurriedly scrambles up after him, holding onto Derek’s arm to help steady him. Derek glances at him, surprised, but smiles gratefully.

“No,” the man says.

“Do you know what it is, Peter?” Talia asks.

Peter doesn’t answer right away, waiting until everyone is practically pacing with impatience before saying: “A skinwalker.”

Both Talia and the man who wanted to kill Stiles groan; presumably, they actually know what a skinwalker is.

“What’s a skinwalker?” Stiles asks, before he can think better of it. And he had _just_ escaped their attention.

Peter zeroes in on Stiles, smiling a little. “I like him.”

“They’re humans who were so evil and depraved that they were cursed,” the yet unnamed man says. Stiles wishes they’d take a break to introduce themselves. He assumes this one’s Papa Hale, if the eyebrows are anything to go by.

“But they can shapeshift,” Stiles persists. “That seems pretty rad to me.”

“That is, as you say, ‘rad’,” Talia says, which makes Stiles grin. Talia, the obvious leader of this pack, just said ‘rad’. “However, they also lose most of their humanity in the process. It’s not pretty.”

Talia suddenly straightens, which causes all of the other werewolves to straighten as well. Stiles’ own spine snaps to attention, almost against his will.

“It’s been an exciting night for you, Stiles,” Talia says, gently. “But it’s very late, and it’s a school night.”

Stiles wants to protest—who has time for school when there are cursed shapeshifters running around?—but Talia holds up her hand.

“Peter and Laura will escort you back to your car. Jakob, help me get our son back home.”

“I can take him back to his car,” Derek interjects, quickly. Stiles can’t read his expression, but for some reason it makes him blush and look down at his feet.

“I’m sure you can, baby bro,” Laura says, sounding amused and faintly fond. She takes Stiles’ arm, pulling him away.

“Don’t do anything rash, Stiles!” Talia calls after them. Stiles looks over his shoulder and waves at them, staring at Derek for long enough that Laura has to yank him forward.

The walk back to the car is long, but not boring. Peter fills the silence by monologuing about skinwalkers, which Stiles appreciates. Apparently, skinwalkers are also witches, because of course there’s magic. Stiles has about five million questions, all of which Peter is more than happy to answer.

“So, you’re kind of a dork,” Laura says when they get to Stiles’ jeep.

Stiles shrugs. He’s been called worse. “I like being informed.”

“I like you,” Laura decides, shoving her hands in her pockets.

Then she leans closer to him and says, “If you hurt him, I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth.”

Stiles has just enough time to gape at her in shock, before she’s all smiles again, patting his shoulder companionably. Stiles scrambles into his car before she decides to just take preventative measures and murder him.

Peter and Laura wave cheerily as Stiles peels away. _Werewolves_.

 

*

Stiles closes his locker and leans his forehead against it, closing his eyes. He got about ten seconds of sleep last night before his brain insisted that it was time to research. Apparently, the only thing that can kill a skinwalker is silver. Stiles wonders if skinwalkers are somehow related to werewolves, or if silver actually _can_ harm werewolves. The problem with the internet is that any pertinent fact is buried under miles of fiction.

Stiles pushes away from his locker and Derek is all of a sudden right up in his business. It's like his understanding of personal space vanished overnight.

"Uh, hi?" Stiles says, pressing up close to the lockers. He’s too tired to be startled. Derek crowds up into him. "Derek?"

"How's your chest?" Derek asks, lifting a hand to unerringly touch one of the scratches. Over one of Derek's shoulders, Stiles spots Danny watching them, eyes wide. Stiles shrugs minutely and looks back at Derek. “Did you break any stitches?”

"No, just opened a little. It’s not bad.”

Derek reaches up, the pads of his fingers just brushing the bare skin at the vee of Stiles' collar. Stiles' breath catches in his throat, his heart leaping at the touch. Derek looks up at him from under long eyelashes, so close that Stiles can see the burst of brown around his pupils.

Black lines snake up Derek's hand, disappearing under his shirt sleeve. If he wasn't effectively pinned up against the locker, Stiles would jump out of his skin.

"Woah! Is this some sort of wer—uh, family trade secret?"

Derek flashes a small, oddly pleased smile at him. "Yeah."

"That is _awesome_."

Derek's entire face lights up. "You really think so. You're not lying."

"Well, yeah. Hey! My chest doesn't hurt anymore!"

"Quiet down a little, will you?" Derek's making an all too familiar bitch face, but Stiles thinks it's a front to hide how happy he is. Which he totally is, for some reason.

"But it's so cool," Stiles hisses. “God, Derek, everything about you is incredible.”

Derek flashes another grin, and jeez those really are dangerous. He pats Stiles' chest and says, “Come on, let’s go to class.”

Derek doesn't get any less weird during lunch, sitting so close to Stiles that their legs are pressed together. Stiles' heart does that funny blip again. Derek glances at him.

Stiles narrows his eyes.

"You can hear that, can't you."

"Yep," Derek says unapologetically, biting into his sandwich.

“Huh,” Stiles says, adding that to his mental catalog for werewolves. "Not that I'm complaining, but why so tactile lately, dude?"

Derek looks down at his tray and scoots away a couple of inches, which wasn't what Stiles meant at all. Stiles scoots after him, until their legs are pressed together again. He is absolutely fascinated by the way Derek's ears go red.

"It's just nice," Derek says to his sandwich, "knowing that someone else knows and doesn't want to kill me and my family because of who we are."

Stiles freezes in the act of stuffing a fry into his mouth. Derek, realizing what he just said, shoots Stiles a spooked look before his face shuts right down.

"What do you mean?" Stiles asks, slowly, even though his heartbeat is picking up speed.

"Nothing," Derek mumbles, hunkering over his sandwich.

"Derek, are there people out there who want to murder you guys?" Stiles hisses. “That’s why you asked me if I was a hunter, wasn’t it? Are there people who hunt you?”

"Stop pushing it," Derek growls, and Stiles notices that it comes from deep in his chest, like a dog, and not from his throat. It should scare Stiles, since it’s further proof at how far from human Derek can be, and it does a little, but he also has a highly inappropriate reaction for the situation. Derek turns to him slowly, and of course he could sense that because he’s a werewolf and—

Scott drops his tray on the table. And, because he’s an asshole, he picks it up and drops it again. Stiles and Derek spring apart _again_ , but Derek saves Stiles from tumbling off the bench by catching his wrist.

“I’m sitting here,” Scott announces, narrowing his eyes at Derek’s hand on Stiles’ wrist. A growl rumbles deep in Derek’s chest, but Scott just lowers his chin and looks at Derek under his brow in response because even though Scott isn’t a werewolf, he can be surprisingly dog-like sometimes.

“Knock it off, guys,” Stiles says, frowning a little at Scott. He’s still smarting about being ditched last night, but Stiles is, and will always be, a really good friend. “Is everything okay with you and Allison?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Scott says, hunkering over his sandwich in a weird imitation of Derek. So, no.

Stiles desperately wants to fill Scott in, but he’s not about to spill Derek’s biggest secret, especially not if there are _hunters_. He instead works on getting the whole sad story out of Scott. It’s surprisingly easy to concentrate on normal human problems, considering all the supernatural problems that have cropped up in his life.

Derek watches him discreetly the entire time. Stiles ignores him, except to press his foot against Derek’s ankle.

 

*

Clear, pale eyes glare down at him and Stiles scrabbles against the tree, trying to put more distance between himself and the boy. He looks—uncivilized, black hair sticking out in every direction, and a smudge of dirt on the side of his face.

“What’s your name?” the boy asks.

Stiles tells him.

The boy stares at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. Names shouldn’t have that many consonants in them. What’s your last name?”

“Stilinski?”

“I might as well just call you Mxyzptlk,” the boy mutters, startling Stiles into genuine laughter. The boy blinks at him in surprise, but he smiles back, if uncertainly.

“How did you even pronounce that? That is so cool. What’s your name?”

“I’m Derek,” the boy says, and Stiles opens his eyes.

For a long moment, he stares at the water stain on his ceiling, then he reaches over to his nightstand to grab his phone.

“What the fuck,” Derek growls into the phone, still sounding half asleep. “Why are you calling me at—3 a.m., Jesus Christ. You realize it’s a school night? Who is this, anyway, and why are you listed in my phone as ‘The Great Bambino’?”

“Rule number one: Never leave your phone unlocked on your desk when you go to the bathroom.”

“Stiles?” There’s a rustle of sheets on the other line; Stiles imagines Derek sitting up. “Do you even play baseball? Never mind— _why_ are you calling me at 3 a.m.?”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize it was late. Or early.” Stiles rubs his hand down his face, suddenly feeling really stupid. “Derek, did you—I know this is going to sound kind of crazy, but did you—find me in the woods? When we were ten?”

There’s a long beat of silence, and then Derek says, “I’m coming over. Leave your window open.”

“It’s 3 a.m., Derek annnd—you hung up on me. Of course you did. That is just great.”

Stiles drops the phone on his chest, seriously contemplating just going back to sleep, Derek bedamned. He even closes his eyes. With a frustrated sigh, he smacks his bed with both hands, then gets up and unlocks his window.

 

*

Stiles is sitting on the edge of his bed when Derek crawls through his window, looking grudgingly impressed.

“Did you just leap onto my roof? In a single bound?”

Derek shrugs and sits next to Stiles, pressing close. Stiles goes a little pink, but doesn’t move away.

“Werewolf,” Derek says, pointing to his chest with his thumb.

“You’re still in your pajamas—did you run here?”

“The Camaro would have been too noisy.”

“ _Werewolves_ ,” Stiles says.

“So you remember then,” Derek says, voice mostly flat; there’s an insistent thread in his tone, though, that even he can hear.

“Sort of?” Stiles scrubs his hands over his face. “I remember that night. That’s the night they told me—” Stiles’ heart stutters and his breathing gets shallow for a second, like he’s in agony.

“I did find you,” Derek says quickly, if just to distract Stiles from whatever is making him feel so much. “I don’t think you remember, but we, um, hung out a lot that summer.”

"That's the summer my mother died," Stiles says, hollowly. "I try not to think about it."

Derek reels back, all the air punched out of his lungs.

"Stiles, I—"

"Is that why you were so mad at me? When we first met?" Stiles hurries on, obviously not wanting to continue on that topic of conversation. "I'm sorry I don't remember you, Derek, but that was just one summer six years ago."

It really wasn't 'just' anything for Derek; Stiles was the first kid Derek spent time with that he wasn't directly related to. Stiles wouldn't remember how all the kids in the Hale family crowded around him, fascinated by this strange human Derek randomly brought home from the woods. He clearly doesn’t remember how he had all but imprinted on Derek, practically clinging to him wherever they went. And there’s no way he remembers bursting into tears when Derek said he had to leave at the end of that summer, or how he made Derek promise to come back.

Not that he’s about to tell any of that to Stiles. There was absolutely no reason to force Stiles to go through traumatic memories, just to remember Derek. He thinks he might still might owe Stiles an explanation about why he was such a jerk, but it takes him a solid five minutes to say anything. Stiles, for once in probably his entire life, silently waits for him.

“Five months ago, my secret girlfriend set my house on fire to murder my entire family,” Derek finally says, tonelessly. “My baby brother and I got them out, though, because Kate was a narrow minded bitch and only trapped the werewolves, not the humans. She didn’t think humans could be in a pack.”

Derek remembers crouching behind the invisible line that separated him from Connor, hands clenched in fists on his thighs to hide his claws. “Do you remember what mom told you?” Derek had asked, as the air became thick with smoke. Connor, loud, rambunctious, happy Connor, had stared at him silently. “You remember how she said that if you really believe we can go to you, we would always be able to, no matter what? I can go to you now Connor, can’t I?”

Connor had nodded, reaching over the mountain ash to take Derek’s hand and pull him forward, and Derek sprung into the house—

“Derek?”

Derek doesn't tell Stiles that while the Hale pack fought the renegade hunters, Kate had shot and kidnapped him. She had hung him by his wrists in some dank basement, so that his toes just barely brushed the floor, and had pressed electrodes onto his side, right where she had once pressed kisses. When she left, he had howled for his mother, but it was Uncle Peter who burst into the basement—

“Hey,” Stiles murmurs; he’s crawled into Derek’s lap without him even realizing it. Stiles cups Derek’s face with both his hands, tilting his head back to look him in the eye. “Hey, come back to me.”

“I—” Derek says, and he can see the moment that Stiles realizes that Derek isn’t just some massive asshole, but that he’s actually also all kinds of fucked up.

“God, Derek, you have to know it wasn’t your fault,” Stiles says, sliding his thumbs over Derek’s cheekbones. Derek flinches.

“I told her,” he gasps. “I trusted her and told her we were werewolves, and she fucking—”

“She saw something good in you that she could manipulate to get what she wanted. The only monster here is her, Derek.”

Derek lets out a low, wounded noise, and surges up to kiss Stiles, desperate. It’s too hard, and his teeth are a little sharper than they probably should be this close to delicate human skin, but Stiles just kisses him through it, gentling the kiss until he’s pulling back, peppering Derek’s face with butterfly kisses.

It takes Derek an embarrassingly long moment to realize what he just did, which was _kiss Stiles_ , who is not only a guy, but also a _Stiles_. He flushes, overwhelmed with embarrassment, and looks down.

“Um,” Stiles says, and the base of his throat is red, which is fascinating. Derek wants to press his nose into the juncture of Stiles’ collarbone and breathe him in, but is self-aware enough to recognize that might be weird for a human. “So, that happened.”

“Yep,” Derek agrees.

“Is it going to happen again?”

“I hope so.”

When Derek looks up again, Stiles is beaming at him, like that’s just the best thing he’s ever heard. Derek grins back helplessly in response, shaking his head a little. This guy.

“I should probably go,” Derek says, reluctantly.

“Do you have to?”

Derek gives in and presses his face against Stiles’ neck. “Your dad’s breathing is getting faster. I think he’s waking up.”

“God,” Stiles says, pulling back to press a hard kiss to the corner of Derek’s mouth. “You’re amazing, I can’t get over it.”

Derek considers just saying ‘fuck it’ and crawling into Stiles’ bed, but the sheriff is getting up. He deposits Stiles back on the bed, bending down to quickly kiss his temple, before leaping back out the window.

“Dad, did I wake you?” Stiles is saying, slightly breathless, as Derek bounds back home, a stupid grin all over his face.

 

*

Stiles doesn’t get to see Derek much the next day, because Scott’s decided that since Allison broke up with him, he has time for Stiles again. Stiles doesn’t mind that much, but he can’t help watching Derek watch him.

“I know you two are dating and all, but you are being totally gross,” Scott says, rolling his eyes.

Stiles balks—how the hell did Scott know, they only kissed yesterday—but then abruptly remembers the last prank he pulled. With all the everything that’s been going on, he totally forgot. Well, at least he doesn’t have to worry about coming out to everyone.

“Oh, like you weren’t just as bad with—” Stiles cuts himself off with a quiet curse when Scott slumps a little. Way to go, Stiles. Some friend you are.

“I’m sorry, dude,” Stiles says, quietly.

“Yeah,” Scott says, and then abruptly adds: “Did you actually go to the forest the other night? By yourself?”

“Yeah, I did,” Stiles says, annoyed. “Thanks for that.”

“Excuse me if I was busy being broken up with,” Scott snaps.

“Yeah, but—”

“One would think you would be tired of all the detentions you’ve been getting lately, Mr. Stilinski,” Mr. Harris says, mildly. “Since you seem to enjoy them so much, why don’t I give you another one. Today, after school.”

Stiles turns around, disbelieving. He doesn’t like to play victim, but Mr. Harris really has it out for him. Derek frowns at Scott, then raises his eyebrows at Stiles. Stiles shrugs roughly and slumps in his chair, annoyed.

 

*

It’s dark by the time Stiles gets out of detention, since he had to stay an hour later due to his limited control of what comes out of his mouth. By the time he finally escapes the hell that is detention with Mr. Harris, the halls are completely empty. Stupid Mr. Harris. Stupid Scott.

Stiles pulls out his phone, powering it back on. The first thing that pops up on his screen is a text from Scott: **sorry man**

Stiles grins ruefully and starts typing out a response, and then he freezes. He is suddenly, unquestionably sure that he’s not alone. Very slowly, he puts his phone back in his pocket and turns around. At the end of the hall, a hulking figure covered in blonde fur is standing very still, watching Stiles. Stiles takes a step back.

The skinwalker roars and lurches forward, just as Stiles lunges for the door back to the Chemistry lab. He swings it open and promptly collides with a brick wall.

“Move move move!” Stiles demands, shoving forward and slamming the door behind him.

“Stiles?” Derek asks. He’s holding his phone up, like he was in the middle of a call, but he lowers his hand when he sees Stiles. “I was just trying to call you.”

“Oh thank god,” Stiles says, clutching Derek’s arm. He has no idea why Derek is here, but he has never been more relieved to see his face. “The skinwalker, it’s here.”

As if on command, the skinwalker slams against the door, making them both jump. Derek yanks Stiles behind him, eyes flaring blue. The door bursts open and the skinwalker prowls in. His entire body is rippling, and he snaps at the air as like a dog chasing after a bee. His face is shifting, transforming into the delicate features of—

“ _Kate_?”

Well, fuck. So, not a male skinwalker.

“Derek, Derek,” Kate croons, prowling towards him. Stiles is having some trouble seeing what Derek saw in her. He guesses her face is nice enough, but all that fur and those wicked, yellow claws have somewhat of a dampening effect.

“You’re growing up _so_ well. But we’ll have to play later, sweetie. I’m busy right now,” she turns back to Stiles, her face elongating again.

Stiles read about how skinwalkers will fixate on their prey, hunting them to the ends of the earth until they can kill them dead. It seems as if Kate has fixated on him. He wonders if she was actually in the forest for him the other night, and if Derek just had a bad case of ‘wrong place at the wrong time.’

Derek lets out a roar that shakes the very foundation of the building and lunges at Kate’s head, forgotten phone skittering across the floor. She meets him mid-lunge, raking her claws at his face and chest.

Stiles scrambles after the phone, swooping it up just as his feet tangle together. He sprawls on the dirty floor, swiping his finger across Derek’s phone.

“Damnit, Derek, why did you have to lock your phone?!”

“Because, Bambino!” Derek snarls back, and then is, once again, taken down.

“Oh god, oh god,” Stiles chants, desperately punching in random numbers.

“It’s ‘4253’!” Derek yells, from the pile of claws and limbs he’s currently tangled in.

Stiles looks at the letters on the number pad. “H-A-L-E. Really, Derek?”

“Now is _not the time_ , Stiles!”

He has a point. Stiles quickly scrolls through Derek’s phone numbers until he hits ‘M’ for ‘Mom.’

“Hello hi Mrs. Hale?” Stiles babbles out as he scrambles back to his feet to dig through Mr. Harris’ cabinets. “Your son is currently getting his ass handed to him by a really evil skinwalker who is actually the same Kate who tried to kill you all half a year ago so if you could get to the school _right now_ that would probably be the best for all of us.”

“What— _Stiles_?”

“I am not even kidding right now you have got to— _Derek_!”

Derek crashes so hard into one of the stations that it actually splinters under his back, and Stiles drops the phone, grabbing the the first bottle he sees and heaving it into the Kate’s face. The glass shatters, splashing clear liquid into her eyes. Kate lets out a bloodcurdling mix between a scream and a howl, clawing at her face. He’s not exactly sure what he hurled at her, but it seems to sting like a mother.

Derek leaps from the pile of broken chairs to slam both of his fists into Kate’s face, cutting off her annoyed howls. She crumples soundlessly to the floor.

The sudden silence is almost shocking. Derek stares unseeingly down at Kate, then turns to Stiles.

“Are you okay?”

Stiles shrugs. He’s feeling a little shocky, if he’s going to be honest. Which he’s not. At least, not to Derek, who looks way more than just a little shocky. “I think your mom’s coming.”

They huddle together at one of the stations, keeping an eye on Kate’s prone body. It takes only a quarter hour for Talia and Jakob appear; they arrive with two other people, an older man and—

“ _Allison_?” Stiles sputters.

“Stiles,” Allison says, eyes huge, and then quickly adds: “Don’t tell Scott!”

“Don’t tell him what? What are you doing here?”

“I see you know Allison Argent,” Talia says. “This is her father, Chris Argent. They are Beacon Hill’s hunters. Kate, here, is Chris’ sister.”

Stiles braces himself against the lab counter, feeling as if the floor has just been yanked out from under him. Scott’s girlfriend is a hunter. Scott’s girlfriend _kills werewolves_ during her free time. No _wonder_ Derek snarled at her.

“Chris and Allison are—’good’ hunters. The Argent’s follow a code, where they only hunt creatures who attack humans without reason,” Jakob explains, then glances down at Kate. “Well, most of them follow the code.”

“We’ll take care of Kate from here,” Chris says, following Jakob’s gaze down at his sister. He clenches his jaw.

“If you don’t, we will,” Talia says, mildly.

Stiles presses closer to Derek. The tension between the Argents and the Hales is so thick in the air it’s almost palpable. Derek picks up on Stiles’ discomfort and stands, pulling Stiles up with him.

“I’m going to take Stiles home,” Derek says, still holding his wrist. “Do you need us here, Mom?”

Talia shakes her head, eyes soft. “I’m sorry you had to go through this, boys. Stiles, don’t hesitate if you ever need to call us.”

“I won’t,” Stiles says, because he’s not going to say no to having a team of werewolves to back him up if he’s in trouble.

“Bye, Allison,” he says. She gives him a tight little finger wave. “Tell him soon, all right?”

“You, too.”

Stiles nods. It’s not his secret to tell, but he thinks if he asks Talia nice enough she’ll let him bring Scott in on it.

“Come on,” Derek says, pulling Stiles out the door. “Let’s get you home.”

 

*

They make the drive back to Stiles’ house in total silence. Derek pulls into the driveway and kills the engine, then just holds on to the steering wheel.

“What were you doing at the school, anyway?” Stiles asks, after they sit quietly for nearly five full minutes. “Not that I’m complaining like, _at all_ , not even a little bit, god, but.”

“I was looking for you,” Derek says. “I thought you were going to be out around five, but you didn’t show and your jeep was still in the parking lot.”

“Why were you waiting for me?”

Derek scratches the back of his neck with his free hand, looking out his side window. “There’s this new Avengers movie that just came out. I was going to see if you wanted to catch it.”

Stiles blinks. “You were waiting around to see if I wanted to go on a date?”

“No! No. Well, maybe. If—you wanted it to be a date.” Derek’s gone slightly pink and is still looking at anything but Stiles. Stiles reaches out and links their hands together, leaning against Derek’s side.

“I would have loved that.”

They’re quiet for a long moment, leaning against each other. Derek shifts to face him, dipping his head down.

It’s not like their first, desperate kiss. This time, when Derek slots their mouths together, it feels like a promise.

When Derek pulls back, Stiles reaches up to touch his lips, then quickly drops his hand since he’s not a little girl. His lips are tingling. He didn’t even know that was actually a thing.

“Derek, that better not be another prank,” Stiles says, and Derek laughs in response, happy and light. “Derek? Derek!”


End file.
